Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. Speaker in the Chair,

Oral Answers to Questions — POLAND (GERMAN WHITE BOOK).

Mr. Mander: asked the Prime Minister whether he has any statement to make with reference to the publication of a White Book by the German Government on alleged Polish diplomatic documents, including some dealing with British policy?

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Butler): Copies of this German White Book do not yet appear to be available. From German Press reports it seems, however, to consist largely of records of conversations alleged to have taken place between United States and Polish representatives. At the end of March, the United States Secretary of State issued a statement that he and the State Department did not give the slightest credence to these alleged conversations, which did not represent in any way at any time the thought or policy of the United States Government.

Mr. Mander: Is there not reason to think that, in accordance with precedent, most of these documents were forged?

Mr. Butler: I can only say what I have said, namely, that this does not represent, in any way or in any manner, the thought or policy of the United States.

Oral Answers to Questions — RIVER DANUBE (GERMAN ACTIVITIES).

Mr. G. Strauss: asked the Prime Minister whether he can make a statement about the German naval activities on the Danube outside German territory?

Mr. Butler: No, Sir. I have no statement to make.

Mr. Strauss: Can the Minister make any comment at all about the disquieting stories which are published about German intentions respecting Danubian waters outside Germany?

Mr. Butler: Naturally, every story which comes to our attention is at once investigated. The hon. Member may be sure that these stories are investigated, but I have no statement to make.

Sir Herbert Williams: Did my hon. Friend see the extraordinary story yesterday in the "Daily Herald"?

Mr. Butler: I always read the "Daily Herald."

Mr. J. J. Davidson: Is the Minister aware that we have nothing to do with the "Daily Herald"?

Mr. Noel-Baker: Is the Minister also investigating, or is he in a position to deny, the report about a great many German tourists going to Balkan countries?

Mr. Butler: I have seen that also.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS.

AIR MINISTRY.

Lord Apsley: asked the Secretary of State for Air whether, under existing regulations, any servant of the Crown serving in the Department of Civil Aviation, or the Minister or Under-Secretary of State in charge of the Department at the time of the formation of the corporations which are to be given the monopoly of civil aviation, internal and external, are debarred, on retirement, from seeking any employment directly or indirectly connected with commercial activities of the financial groups in control of the combine?

The Secretary of State for Air (Sir Samuel Hoare): The principles governing the acceptance of business appointments by officers of the Crown Services are laid down in Command Paper 5517, which was presented to Parliament in July, 1937. These require that civil servants of the higher grades must get the assent of the Minister in charge of their Department before accepting employment in undertakings such as those referred to by my Noble Friend. This applies to them not only while they are on the active list,


but also for two years after their retirement. Such procedure is obviously inapplicable to Ministers, for whom the surest guide lies, as successive Prime Ministers have pointed out, in the traditional standards of public life.

CLERICAL AND SECRETARIAL WORK.

Mr. Robert Gibson: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he has considered or will consider with the Admiralty, War Office and Air Ministry, the selection of clerk-typists and shorthand-typists for clerical and secretarial work on the lines of selection and on conditions of unestablished service for corresponding groups in the Civil Service?

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Captain Crookshank): If I am right in assuming that the hon. and learned Member refers to clerical and secretarial work now performed by uniformed personnel, the answer is in the negative. The allocation of Service personnel to their duties is not a matter for the Treasury, but for the Departments concerned.

Mr. Gibson: Has the right hon. and gallant Gentleman considered what was said during the Debate on the Adjournment on Civil Service examinations last Wednesday? Does he not recollect that one of the matters brought up then was that there is a deep sense of grievance among candidates who have been prevented from sitting for Civil Service examinations in respect that they are qualified to do the work indicated in the Question which is being performed by young women in uniform who have not had the training for the Civil Service examinations?

Captain Crookshank: I promised to consider carefully what was said then, but this is another question. If my assumption was right, and if the hon. and learned Gentleman is meaning uniformed personnel, he should address that question to the Minister concerned in the Service Department.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL AIR FORCE.

GLIDING (CADETS).

Mr. Lipson: asked the Secretary of State for Air whether he will consider providing the necessary financial support

to make possible a gliding camp for air cadets?

Sir S. Hoare: For Defence reasons, it has been necessary to impose severe restrictions on all kinds of civil flying in this country, and I regret that I cannot see my way, in present circumstances, to sanction the establishment of a gliding camp for air cadets.

Mr. Lipson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there are 20,000 of these young air cadets, in 170 squadrons, and can he not do something to give them greater encouragement?

Sir S. Hoare: I should certainly like to do everything I could to encourage these excellent cadets, but I am afraid that, in war time, the actual suggestion made by my hon. Friend is very difficult to carry out.

Lord Apsley: Are there actually any military reasons for stopping gliding?

Sir S. Hoare: I am advised that, for Defence reasons, we cannot manage to do this. As my Noble Friend knows, we are considering the possibility of introducing gliding as a recreation for pilot pupils for the Royal Air Force, and that, we think, is as far as we can go.

SUPER-CHARGED SEARCHLIGHTS.

Mr. J. P. Morris: asked the Secretary of State for Air whether he is now in a position to make a statement on the suggestion made to his predecessor by the hon. Member for North Salford regarding the provision of super-charged searchlights on the floor of seaplanes and aeroplanes made four months ago, and which device, since that date, is now in use by the German air force?

Sir S. Hoare: The suggestion to which my hon. Friend refers has been carefully considered, but the conclusion has been reached that there are better and easier methods of achieving the object which my hon. Friend has in mind.

Mr. Morris: Is it not a disgraceful state of affairs that I should have to wait four months for a reply to my suggestion and then receive it only under pressure? If my suggestion has been examined by the advisers of the right hon. Gentleman, may I have a copy of the report? Thirdly, why is the German air force using this device?

Sir S. Hoare: I can only say that I saw my hon. Friend's Question only the day before yesterday, and that I have given him an answer to-day. As to whether or not the German air force are using what my hon. Friend suggests, I do not know whether that is so or not; but, at any rate, we are convinced that we have better methods of achieving my hon. Friend's object.

Mr. Morris: While agreeing with my right hon. Friend, may I say that I have already approached his right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal three times and his Parliamentary Secretary twice?

Sir S. Hoare: These things get better with time.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY.

SERVICE CANTEENS (MERCHANT NAVY).

Sir Reginald Clarry: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that some resentment is felt in certain cases by British merchant seamen, fishermen, and others, who are assisting naval operations, in consequence of their ineligibility to use naval Service canteens; and whether he will consider removing this embargo and making provision for all seamen who are co-operating with His Majesty's Navy, but not in the Service, to have some easy and outward mark of identification, such as an armlet or headdress, during shore leave?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty (Sir Victor Warrender): Naval Service canteens may be used by all men serving in commissioned ships of the Royal Navy, but not normally by other seafaring men. While it would not be desirable to displace the facilities already provided by private enterprise, consideration is being given to opening the canteens to Merchant Navy personnel in those remote places where no convenient private facilities are available. Men serving in commissioned ships, who are not provided with uniforms, wear armlets, and men of the Merchant Navy have been issued with the Merchant Navy badge.

CAMOUFLAGE.

Sir J. Graham Kerr: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty, whether he is aware that during the last war a sum of over £2,000,000 was expended upon the camouflaging of ships; that this, in spite

of its imperfections due to lack of scientific control, was generally recognised by the Mercantile Marine as of considerable value and by underwriters as justifying a reduced premium for insurance; and whether he will give an assurance that immediate steps will be taken to secure to the Navy the advantages of a proper system of camouflage under direct supervision by scientific experts?

Sir V. Warrender: We are aware of the advantages which are claimed for camouflage and dazzle painting and of the views which my hon. Friend has been good enough to lay before us. The evidence obtained, both from this and the last war, has not so far supported all the claims which have been made for these devices, but we are continuing to examine their possibilities, to keep in touch with the best expert advice obtainable, and to press on actively with all practical applications.

Mr. R. Gibson: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is much more important to camouflage ships than to camouflage typists with uniforms like those of the belles of "Bagatelle"?

BRITISH TROOPS, NORWAY (PRESS REPORTS).

Mr. Aneurin Bevan: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty why permission was given, on April 9th, for the publication of false reports of the landing of British troops in certain Norwegian ports?

Mr. G. Strauss: asked the Minister of Information whether he is aware of the serious effect on public opinion, in this and foreign countries, of the passing for publication on 9th April of the false news of the landing of British troops in certain Norwegian ports; and whether he can explain the action of the Ministry in the matter?

Sir V. Warrender: I have been asked to reply also to Question 31. The British Press, unlike that of the enemy, is not subject to Government control. The newspapers in this country remain individually responsible for the accuracy of the news they publish, and also for the prominence assigned to any items culled from the foreign Press. The Admiralty is always willing to give unofficial advice, but if, as in this case, some of the Press choose to disregard the advice given, the responsibility does not rest with us.

Mr. Bevan: Was it not the responsibility of the Admiralty, while not suppressing this information, to issue a denial, so that false hopes would not be raised in the country with the result of unfortunate emotional reactions afterwards? Surely the hon. Gentleman realises that very high feeling has been created by these reports?

Sir V. Warrender: Perhaps I may tell the hon. Gentleman that it is a very common dodge on the part of the enemy to spread abroad wholly or partially false reports, and that an official denial may well provide the enemy with information which he is anxious to get but cannot secure. It is for this reason, among others, that it is not the practice of the Admiralty to issue official denials of rumours.

Mr. Strauss: Is it not a fact that, on this occasion, the Admiralty were approached by some papers, specifically the "Daily Herald," and asked whether they might publish this, and that the Admiralty told them that they could publish it on that day?

Sir V. Warrender: It is perfectly true that the "Daily Herald" and certain other organs of the Press did approach the Press Department in the Admiralty. They were told by the officers of the Press Department that they should treat these reports with reserve. Bearing in mind the considerations which I gave to the House just now, I think that that was the right policy for the Admiralty to follow.

Sir H. Williams: Did the "Daily Herald" also approach the Admiralty in relation to the very comprehensive details published in yesterday's edition of that paper with regard to the sailing of an expeditionary force to Norway?

VIRGIN ISLANDS (TOBACCO-GROWING).

Mr. Mander: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the position with regard to the application by Mr. C. Brudenell-Bruce, of Virgin Islands Tobacco, for a loan from the Colonial Development Fund, for the purpose of developing tobacco-growing in the British Virgin Islands; and whether, in view of the long delay in coming to a decision in

this matter, he is able to state what assistance it is proposed to give?

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Malcolm MacDonald): In April, 1939, I received an application for a loan of £3,000 from the Colonial Development Fund to finance this undertaking. Certain difficulties were apparent, particularly as regards marketing, and I felt unable to place the matter before the Colonial Development Advisory Committee until some means of overcoming them could be devised. In the meantime, loans totalling £1,000 have been made to this undertaking from the funds of the Virgin Islands Government.

Mr. Mander: Is there any objection in principle to the encouragement of tobacco-growing there, and are not funds available for a concern of this kind?

Mr. MacDonald: As I have said, we are encouraging this tobacco-growing, by giving assistance from the local Government's funds, so clearly there is no objection in principle.

Oral Answers to Questions — PALESTINE.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS.

Mr. Mander: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what reply was sent to the New Zionist organisation which, on 14th February, offered to assist him in weeding out German agents from among illegal immigrants into Palestine?

Mr. M. MacDonald: His Majesty's Government naturally felt unable to entertain this offer from a body which is known to be engaged in promoting this illegal traffic.

Mr. Mander: Did not the right hon. Gentleman say the other day that he had received no offer of assistance and that if he did, he would be prepared to accept it?

Mr. MacDonald: It depends entirely on the value of the offer. We regard this particular offer as valueless.

BOY'S SENTENCE (TEL AVIV).

Mr. T. Williams: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that, on 2nd March, after the proclamation of the curfew in Tel Aviv about 12 o'clock mid-day, a boy named Mizrachi, aged 15 years, was arrested and fined 100 mils for curfew-breaking; that three days later he was rearrested on


a charge of participating in a demonstration and carrying a banner, the same offence for which he had been fined, and was sentenced to 12 strokes, and that the sentence was carried out the same day although the defence asked for leave to appeal; and who was responsible for this injustice?

Mr. M. MacDonald: I understand that the boy in question was convicted by the District Officer under the Emergency Regulations of curfew-breaking and was fined 100 mils, which is the equivalent of two shillings. Subsequently he was charged before the Chief Magistrate at Tel Aviv with taking part in a riot contrary to the provisions of Section 81 of the Criminal Code Ordinance. The Chief Magistrate decided against the submission of the advocate for the defence that curfew-breaking and rioting formed the same act or omission, and sentenced the accused, against whom the police proved a previous conviction for theft, to be whipped. The advocate applied for postponement of execution of the sentence, but this was refused and the sentence was carried out. There is no appeal as of right in such cases.

Mr. Williams: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that what he calls a riot was merely a demonstration and that the boy was simply carrying a flag? Is it the traditional law and justice in Palestine now that a boy of 15 years of age can be charged twice with the same offence and can receive two separate punishments but be granted no right of appeal?

Mr. MacDonald: I cannot accept the statement that there were two punishments for the same offence. The magistrate took the view that the two offences were separate and that two punishments were therefore justified. With regard to the facts as to what the boy was actually doing, I have no doubt that all those were brought before the magistrate in his hearing of the case and that he gave what he considered to be the appropriate punishment.

Mr. Williams: Has the right of appeal been completely suppressed in Palestine, and, if so, what does the right hon. Gentleman intend to substitute?

Mr. MacDonald: The right of appeal has not been completely suppressed, of course, but it has been the law for a long

time that in such cases there is no appeal as of right.

Mr. Thorne: Has the right hon. Gentleman ever been punished, in days gone by, by receiving strokes of the birch?

Mr. MacDonald: That question does not really arise.

Mr. Williams: I desire to give notice that, in view of the unsatisfactory nature of the replies to this Question, I shall take the first opportunity of raising the matter on the Adjournment.

TRINIDAD (CENTRAL LIBRARY).

Mr. Jagger: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that, so long ago as 1936, the Carnegie Corporation of New York offered a sure of $80,000 for the establishment of a central library to the Government of Trinidad; that, although the public library of the capital is in a most dilapidated and poverty-stricken state, four years have elapsed without any definite steps being taken to secure the proffered grant; and whether he will therefore take steps to ensure that the Government of Trinidad take the necessary steps to secure the grant in question?

Mr. M. MacDonald: I was informed in August last by the Governor of Trinidad that this generous offer by the Carnegie Corporation of New York had been accepted. I approved the scheme, and steps are at present being taken in consultation with the Governor of Trinidad to select a librarian for the service.

Mr. Jagger: Will the right hon. Gentleman put some pressure on the Governor so that something is actually done?

Mr. Paling: Why has it taken three years to accept this offer?

Mr. MacDonald: The question whether the scheme can be extended to certain neighbouring territories took a considerable time to thrash out.

AFRICAN DEPENDENCIES (NATIVE ADMINISTRATION).

Mr. Creech Jones: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, whilst Lord Hailey is discussing forms of government in the Dependencies with


Government officials and others, it is also proposed that he should seize the opportunity of discussing the subject with native chiefs and councils?

Mr. M. MacDonald: As was indicated in the announcement published on 27th January, Lord Hailey's visit is informal in character. The procedure which he adopts in studying aspects of native administration in the Dependencies which he is visiting in West, East and Central Africa is a matter for his discretion. The Governors of those territories will undoubtedly afford him every facility that he may desire for discussion with Africans as well as Europeans, whether official or unofficial.

Mr. Creech Jones: Will the right hon. Gentleman put the suggestion to Lord Hailey that this type of consultation might be included in his work?

Mr. MacDonald: I am certain that Lord Hailey has that in mind. In fact, he has had such consultations during his visit to West Africa, which is already completed.

NORTHERN RHODESIA (INDUSTRIAL DISPUTE).

Mr. Creech Jones: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what form of inquiry will be made into the shooting of African strikers in an industrial dispute in the copper belt of Northern Rhodesia; and whether Parliament will receive the report of such inquiry in due course?

Mr. Edmund Harvey: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the terms of reference of the Commission of Inquiry into the industrial dispute at the copper mines in Northern Rhodesia, and the loss of life occasioned in connection with it; and also the membership of the commission?

Mr. M. MacDonald: I am still in communication with the Governor of Northern Rhodesia about the composition and terms of reference of the Commission of Inquiry which is to be set up, but I expect to be able to make an announcement on these matters in the course of the next few days. With regard to the second part of the Question by the hon. Member for the English Universities (Mr. Harvey), I

would refer him to the answer which I gave to a number of Questions last week, to which there is nothing to add.

Mr. Creech Jones: In considering the terms of reference, will the right hon. Gentleman also be including the disputes with the white employés in the mines?

Mr. MacDonald: It would be impossible to make a public statement until the terms of reference are settled, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that that matter is not being lost sight of.

Mr. Davidson: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether Parliament will receive a report?

Mr. MacDonald: Until these questions have been decided, I cannot make any statement.

Mr. Harvey: Will the right hon. Gentleman take care that the terms of reference are wide enough to include the economic grounds of the disputes?

Mr. MacDonald: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Paling: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the total wages of the native copper-mine workers in Northern Rhodesia for the last available 12 months?

Mr. MacDonald: As the answer contains a number of figures, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the Official Report.

Mr. Duncan: Will the right hon. Gentleman publish with that statement the cost of living in those parts?

Mr. MacDonald: It would be difficult to give figures, but the whole question will undoubtedly be examined by the Commission of Inquiry, and perhaps my hon. Friend will leave that particular aspect of affairs for the time being.

Following is the answer:

The wages paid to the African employés at the four copper mines in Northern Rhodesia during the last 12 months amounted to £357,056. The wages paid at the individual mines were as follow: Mufulira, £89,796; Roan Antelope, £120,435; N'Changa, £34,468; Nkana, £112,357. These figures includes overtime and bonuses, but do not take into account the cost of food with which the workers


are supplied free of charge. The cost of such food at Nkana during the last 12 months was £72,633 and at the other mines was probably in similar proportion to the wages bill.

18 and 19. Mr. Paling: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies (1) whether, in view of the fact that the profits of three copper mine companies in Northern Rhodesia for the last six months, for which figures are available, are estimated to be £2,674,000, he is satisfied that the recent increase of 2s. 6d. per month on the wages of native workers represented an adequate effort on behalf of the companies to meet the demands of their low-paid workers;
(2) in view of the fact that the Pim Commission reported in 1938 that at the copper mines in Northern Rhodesia there were serious defects arising mainly from the absence of any definite policy towards industrial labour, to what extent the recent labour troubles in which 14 were killed and 70 injured were due to the fact that little or nothing has been done to improve conditions since the report was issued?

Mr. MacDonald: These are matters which will no doubt be considered by the Commission of Inquiry, and I cannot anticipate any observations which they may have to make. I cannot, however, accept the implication in the second Question by the hon. Member that little or nothing has been done to improve conditions on the Copperbelt since 1938. Considerable progress has been made as the result of the appointment of welfare officers and welfare sisters, the building of schools and the provision of additional amenities for the mine workers and their families.

Mr. Paling: Has anything been done in the direction indicated in the Question with reference to industrial labour legislation, and particularly in the direction of increased wages? In view of the enormous profits which have been made by these companies, why is it that bloodshed has to occur before these people can make any progress in their lowly-paid positions?

Mr. MacDonald: I was not aware that the hon. Member intended to refer specifically to labour legislation. I thought the Question referred to the conditions,

and that is the Question I tried to answer. Perhaps the hon. Member will put down his Question specifically with regard to labour legislation, and I shall be able to answer it on another occasion.

Mr. Paling: Surely my Question was directed to the policy with regard to industrial labour, which was the matter referred to by the Pim Commission?

Mr. MacDonald: If I misunderstood the Question, I am very sorry. If the hon. Gentleman will put it down specifically, I will give him an answer.

Mr. Stephen: During the period of inquiry will the right hon. Gentleman make representations to the companies to the effect that there should be an increase in wages more than this 2s. 6d. a month?

MALAYA (TRADE UNIONS).

Mr. Creech Jones: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the recent proposals for trade unionism in Malaya include the legalising of trade unions in line with the proposals of the Royal Commission on the West Indies?

Mr. M. MacDonald: The Straits Settlements Trade Union Ordinance, 1940, and the Federated Malay States Trade Union Bill contain provision prohibiting actions of tort against trade unions on the lines of the United Kingdom Trade Disputes Act, 1906. They also provide for the compulsory registration of trade unions and the audit of their funds. They do not include provision legalising peaceful picketing, but the enactment of separate legislation on this subject is under consideration by the two Governments.

Mr. Creech Jones: Is it the desire of the Secretary of State that peaceful picketing should be legalised?

Mr. MacDonald: I do not think I could make any public statement while this matter is under consideration by the two Governments.

GOLD COAST (GOLD COMPANIES).

Mr. David Adams: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can now supply the return asked for, on 22nd November, 1939, by the hon. Member for Consett, for particulars to be


obtained from the Governor of the Gold Coast for a return covering the last 10 years, showing the total profits declared by the gold companies of that Colony, and the amount spent on the welfare of the workers by these companies during that period; and, in view of the fact that the Governor was then requested to supply this information, whether he can now indicate the cause of the delay in obtaining the same?

Mr. M. MacDonald: I regret that this information has still not been received. The collection of detailed information of this kind covering a period of years and its presentation in the form desired must, in present conditions, necessarily take some time. I have, however, asked the Governor to inform me by telegram when I may expect to receive it: and I will inform the hon. Member of his reply.

Mr. Adams: I take it that the Minister is satisfied that these controlled companies are not showing disrespect to the Governor and to himself?

Mr. MacDonald: Yes, Sir.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT.

GREENOCK DOCKS (SAFETY MEASURES).

Mr. R. Gibson: asked the Minister of Transport whether he is aware that the quays at Greenock Docks have not yet been fenced off; that further casualties took place on Tuesday and Friday of the week before last during the black-out; whether he has had an inspection made of the harbour recently; when the docks will be fenced off from the street during the hours of the black-out; and if he has any statement to make on the subject?

The Minister of Transport (Captain Wallace): As the hon. and learned Member is no doubt aware, the responsibility for taking measures necessary to secure the safety of harbour users rests with the harbour authority. Approximately two-thirds of the Greenock Harbour undertaking has for many years past been separated from the town by boundary fencing. I have been in communication with the harbour authority regarding the erection of a boundary fencing at the remainder, and I am informed that this is now being done, although at certain places there are

physical difficulties owing to the proximity of the harbour boundary to the main thoroughfare of the town.

Mr. Gibson: While I thank the Minister for his interest, is he aware that there will be great disappointment in Greenock about the measures proposed to be taken? Will he keep in mind that this matter has engaged the attention of other Departments, and that there is a strong feeling in Greenock that the deaths that have occurred at the docks have been largely due to the black-out and to the fact that the fencing has been put in the wrong place?

Captain Wallace: I will certainly look into those questions. Perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman will be good enough to see me afterwards.

ROAD GRANTS.

Sir R. Clarry: asked the Minister of Transport whether the estimated payments to be made in 1940 by way of grants to highway authorities for improvements of roads and new construction, as stated in Appendix No. 1 to the Road Fund Estimate, include the payments to be made in 1940–1 in respect of the major works mentioned in Appendix No. 2; and, if so, whether he will state the amount required for grants in 1940–1 for each of those major works?

Captain Wallace: The answer to the first part of the Question is in the affirmative. I will supply my hon. Friend with the details for which he asks.

SIR HENRY MAYBURY.

Lord Apsley: asked the Minister of Transport in what capacity the services of Sir Henry Maybury are being retained by his Department; and whether he is also being employed by any other Government Department in an advisory or executive capacity?

Captain Wallace: Sir Henry Maybury is one of the members appointed by the London Passenger Transport Board on the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee, but his services are not retained by my Department in any capacity.

BRISTOL CHANNEL (WHITSUN TRAFFIC).

Lord Apsley: asked the Minister of Transport what special measures are being


taken to deal with the Whitsun traffic between the South coast of Wales and the North coast of Somerset and Devon, in view of the compulsory closing of the existing air services?

Captain Wallace: I am advised that there is no reason to expect that the railway services will not be adequate for this traffic. No special measures are, therefore, in contemplation.

Lord Apsley: Will the ferry boat be put into operation?

Captain Wallace: Perhaps my hon. Friend will put that question down.

Lord Apsley: Have the railways considered the very large volume of traffic that will arise if it is not put into operation, and are they taking special measures to deal with it?

Captain Wallace: My information is that they have considered the amount of traffic that is likely to arise, and that they will be able to deal with it.

RAILWAY RATES AND FARES (INCREASE).

Mr. Ridley: asked the Minister of Transport what applications he has received from the railway companies to increase their rates and fares; and whether he proposes to remit them for decision to the Railway Rates Tribunal?

Captain Wallace: The financial arrangements between the Government, the four amalgamated railway companies and the London Passenger Transport Board provide that rates, fares and charges will be adjusted to meet variations in working costs and certain other conditions arising from the war. I explained to the House on 13th February the machinery which would be provided for this purpose, and, in accordance with the agreed procedure, the Railway Executive Committee have submitted to me estimates of increases in working costs amounting to £26,750,000 in respect of the 19 months from the commencement of control to 31st March, 1941. These estimates have been scrutinised in my Department, and I am satisfied that increased working costs, to the extent of £22,250,000 have been proved. This figure is made up of £9,750,000 for increased labour costs, £2,500,000 for allowances to men serving with His Majesty's Forces, and £10,000,000 for increased prices of fuel and materials. The balance of £4,500,000, representing

increases due to black-out and other precautionary measures, is to be examined in the light of further experience.
The Railway Executive Committee have submitted to me that the proved increases justify an all-round addition to railway charges of10 per cent., which is estimated to yield £18,000,000 in a full year. I am satisfied that the facts fully justify this increase, and I have, therefore, made an Order authorising, as from 1st May, 1940, an addition of 10 per cent. to all railway charges, including fares on the railways of the London Passenger Transport Board. This Order does not cover the road services of the Board, which give rise to special difficulties in the adjustment of fares for short stages. I am, therefore, asking the Consultative Committee, comprising the members of the Railway Rates Tribunal, to advise me as to the best means of obtaining a corresponding increase from the Board's road services.

Mr. Ridley: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that the widespread criticism of the announcement that he has just made would have been at least allayed if he had taken the normal course of remitting the application to the Railway Rates Tribunal, for public hearing and judicial decision, instead of choosing to be judge and jury in his own case?

Captain Wallace: The reason why I did not remit this proposal to the members of the Railway Rates Tribunal, in a consultative capacity, was that time is the essence of the contract. This deficit has been running on for some time, and, under the terms of the Agreement which this House approved on 13th February, His Majesty's Government are liable to reimburse to the controlled undertakings a sum approximating to £400,000 a week. The longer that is allowed to run on without the necessary adjustment of charges, on principles already approved by this House, the more danger there is that the adjustment will have to be more drastic.

Mr. John Wilmot: Does the right hon. and gallant Gentleman appreciate that, by abolishing the judicial protection of the railway users which the Railway Rates Tribunal afforded, he is getting into a position where only one side of the case is being heard, and that, since the Government now have an interest in the profits of the railway companies, the users' interest is not being heard at all?

Captain Wallace: If the jurisdiction of the Railway Rates Tribunal in regard to the general level of charges had not been suspended by me, it would have been open to the railway companies to apply to the Railway Rates Tribunal for an increase of charges sufficient to bring their income up to the standard revenue. The Railway Rates Tribunal, if it thought that this could be achieved—which I think is very probable—would have been bound, under Statute, to grant that increase. It is, therefore, for the protection of the railway users that I have suspended the functions of the Railway Rates Tribunal in this regard.

Mr. Wilmot: The Minister will appreciate that the Tribunal would have heard evidence from the other side, and that that has not been done in this case?

Captain Wallace: It is not a question of evidence from the other side. This House approved an agreement on 13th February, under which the controlled undertakings are to be reimbursed by the Government for these particular increases. The only point at issue is whether these increased charges have been incurred or not. I am satisfied that they have been incurred. Therefore, with great respect, the Government must fulfil their obligations.

Mr. Ridley: Owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Edinburgh and Glasgow (Railway Stations).

Mr. Woodburn: asked the Minister of Transport (1) whether he is prepared to arrange for the supply of platform tickets by automatic machines at Waverley Station, Edinburgh, and Queen Street Station, Glasgow, as in the case of London Midland and Scottish stations in both towns, with a view to avoiding the congestion at the booking-office windows, which causes delay, irritation, and sometimes loss of trains to bona-fide passengers;
(2) whether he is aware that the charge of 3d. per person for platform tickets at Waverley Station, Edinburgh, and Queen Street Station, Glasgow, only results in preventing poor people securing admission to the platforms; that the congestion at the entrances impedes admission to the platforms of bona-fide passengers; that

in both stations there is ample platform accommodation, and more than at the London Midland and Scottish Railway Company's stations, where 1d. is the charge; and whether he can arrange for a uniform platform charge at all Scottish stations?

Captain Wallace: I am having the hon. Member's suggestions considered, and will communicate with him as soon as possible.

Mr. Neil Maclean: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman not already aware that this happens in two different stations in Glasgow? One is charging 3d. for admission to the platform, and the other is charging only 1d.?

Captain Wallace: If the hon. Gentleman will read the Official Report for last Wednesday, he will see that I answered a Question on that subject.

Mr. Woodburn: Is the Minister aware that the information given to him about the stations at Glasgow is totally inaccurate, and that Waverley Station is probably the most spacious station in the world?

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF INFORMATION.

BROADCAST NEWS BULLETINS.

Captain Anstruther-Gray: asked the Minister of Information whether he will exercise his right of veto with regard to British Broadcasting Corporation news bulletins?

Mr. Grimston (Treasurer of the House-hold): I have been asked to reply. My right hon. Friend would exercise his right of veto on any matter to be broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation, if it were necessary to do so, but he does not anticipate that any such nesessity will arise in view of the co-operation which exists between the Ministry of Information and the Corporation.

Captain Anstruther-Gray: When, as happened last week, early broadcasts are misleading, will the Minister not take steps to prevent the repetition of the misleading substance in later broadcasts?

Mr. Grimston: I will certainly draw my right hon. Friend's attention to that.

Sir H. Williams: Does this also apply to the broadcasting of information by the representative of Moscow in London?

Commander Bower: Is my hon. Friend not aware that, whether we like it or not, any announcements of the B.B.C. are regarded abroad as being at least semi-official, and that fantastic, inaccurate announcements of this sort cast the gravest doubt upon our official announcements when they come out?

CENSORSHIP.

Mr. Levy: asked the Minister of Information what is the relationship between the Ministry and the Defence Departments in the administration of the censorship; and whether the Defence Departments exercise final authority in deciding what shall be published, and when, on matters that directly concern the Defence Services?

Mr. Grimston: In my right hon. Friend's absence, I have been asked to reply. As was explained by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, in his statement on 3rd October, the responsibility for censorship rests upon the Departments which are concerned with the subject matter.

Mr. Levy: If an arrangement is come to between the Defence Departments and the Ministry of Information, will my hon. Friend give an assurance that the decision will be announced in the House of Commons and not by means of a Press communiqué?

Mr. Grimston: I am hardly in a position to give that assurance myself, but I will draw the attention of the proper quarters to my hon. Friend's remarks.

Mr. G. Strauss: Will the hon. Gentleman ask the Minister to see that the Defence Departments, on important occasions, such as the events of last week, give the Ministry of Information some positive news and guidance to give to the Press and not just negative news?

Commander Bower: Can we have some explanation why the Minister is not here to answer these very important Questions?

Mr. Grimston: My right hon. Friend is away on an important engagement, which I understand he could not cancel, and I am sure that he regrets not being able to be here.

Mr. Garro Jones: Can we be told what the important engagement is?

MILITARY SERVICE (HARDSHIP COMMITTEES, LEGAL AID).

Mr. Garro Jones: asked the Attorney-General what reply he has made to the request from the Bar Council, the Law Society, or other professional quarters, on the subject of legal representation before the military service hardship tribunals and the umpire; and what action he proposes to take in the matter?

The Solicitor-General (Sir Terence O'Connor): I have been asked to reply. Following upon representations which were made, it was decided to modify the regulation relating to the subject to which the hon. Member refers in the manner stated in the answer given by my right hon. Friend, the Minister of Labour, to the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. J. Morgan) on 18th January.

Mr. Garro Jones: Has any further action been taken to bring the procedure before the tribunals into line with the procedure before the umpire? Why cannot the legal representation be allowed before the tribunal that is allowed before the umpire?

The Solicitor-General: There have been no representations to my right hon. and learned Friend or to my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor in the sense that the hon. Gentleman's Question suggests, and he will recall that the regulations were modified as the result of compromise, and, in the absence of any representation since, we are justified in thinking that the compromise has been acceptable.

Mr. Cassells: Does not the hon. and learned Gentleman seriously consider that this policy constitutes a distinct hardship upon the applicant appearing before the Service tribunal?

The Solicitor-General: There are, of course, many other considerations, such, for example, as analogous work that these tribunals have to do, which put a different aspect upon what prima facie is agreed.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND.

FEEDING-STUFFS (ALLOCATION).

Mr. Cassells: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is prepared to see that, if any rationing scheme is introduced for livestock foods, poultry


feeding should be included on a parity basis commensurate with other livestock requirements?

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Captain McEwen): The allocation of feeding-stuffs, if a rationing scheme is introduced, must depend upon the supply position from time to time and the relative importance in the national interest of the various classes of livestock. The hon. Member will, of course, be aware of the announcement of the Government's policy with regard to feeding-stuffs and livestock made on 22nd November last.

Mr. Cassells: Does not the hon. and gallant Gentleman consider that the suggestion contained in this Question is quite to the point, having regard to the position in Denmark at the present moment?

PROTECTED AREAS.

Mr. Cassells: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that the protected area covers practically 40 per cent. of Scotland, and that the present regulations, unless relaxed, will have a very serious effect upon Scotland generally; and is he prepared to authorise that the local registrar or the police authorities should be empowered to issue permits if nationality and character could be vouched for?

The Financial Secretary to the War Office (Sir Edward Grigg): I am aware that the Protected Areas Orders cover a large proportion of the area of Scotland, and their effect is fully appreciated. It is not considered practicable that the local registrars or police should assume responsibility for inquiries into the credentials of applicants for permits.

Mr. Cassells: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the proposal contained in this particular Question was unanimously adopted by the Convention of Royal Burghs in Scotland within the last two weeks?

Sir E. Grigg: I was not aware of that fact, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we are doing our utmost to mitigate any inconvenience, and I am in consultation with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland about it. But I think he and the House will also recognise, in the light of what has happened

elsewhere, that considerations of security must be predominant.

Sir Archibald Sinclair: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that one of the worst grievances of the local people is that people, whose home is in the area but who work outside it, are able to get permits to go home and visit their families only if they state that they can go on certain dates, but if they want to visit a sick relative or a brother, or go home when a brother is coming on leave from the Front, it is impossible for them to state the specific date beforehand; and should not the permits, therefore, be issued to people whose homes are in the area without a limited effect?

Sir E. Grigg: Yes, Sir, I am aware of that difficulty, and we do our best to meet it. But I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will recognise that the issue of standing permits would be subject to great objection.

Mr. Cassells: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.

WELSH CHURCH.

Sir Haydn Jones: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the public authorities which are beneficiaries under the Welsh Church Acts are to receive the properties and the portion of the redemption stock now in the hands of the trustees?

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Peake): I am informed that the Commissioners have decided to make an interim distribution to the University of Wales of all landed properties transferable to the university as from 29th September, 1939, but they are advised that they are not able to make such an interim distribution to the county and county borough councils at present. The landed property transferable to them will, however, be valued as at the same date, and they will be credited with the net income thereon. The Commissioners are not in a position to hand over redemption stock to the beneficiaries at this stage, since the amount to be received by them has not yet been finally decided by the Tithe Redemption Commission, and certain legal decisions affecting it are pending. The Chairman of the Commission explained the position in detail at a


conference of beneficiaries at Shrewsbury on 25th January last.

Sir H. Jones: asked the Home Secretary how many officials are employed by the Welsh Church Commission, and what salary is paid to each?

Mr. Peake: With the hon. Member's permission, I will circulate details in the Official Report.

Following are the details:


The Welsh Church Commissioners employ six salaried officials and 11 temporary clerks and typists. Their salaries and wages amount to £4,685 10s. 0d. as follows:



£
s.
d.
£
s.
d.


*Secretary (vacant)

—






*Assistant Secretary and Chief Accountant.
650
0
0





Glebe Superintendent
550
0
0





Assistant Accountant
500
0
0





Secretary's Personal Assistant.
435
0
0





Registrar
300
0
0





Accounts Clerk
300
0
0









2,735
0
0


Grade and Temporary Clerks:


1
221
0
0





2
208
0
0





3
201
10
0





4
182
0
0





5
161
4
0





6
161
4
0





7
161
4
0





8
161
4
0





Shorthand Typists:


1
196
15
0





2
157
15
0





Typist
138
14
0









1,950
10
0






4,685
10
0


* The amalgamation of these two posts is under consideration.

AGRICULTURE (RATS AND MICE).

Sir Ralph Glyn: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he will consider rescuscitating the research unit dealing with rat and mouse control that was found effective during and after the last war, but which was abolished subsequently at the suggestion of the Geddes Economy Committee; in the meantime, what proposals he has put forward to enforce the Rats and Mice Act of 1914; and whether he will consider dealing with the loop-holes in the Statute by special regulations?

Captain McEwen: I have been asked to reply. The need for the research unit referred to in the first part of the Question would not appear to arise in view of the investigations on rodent control which are being carried out under the auspices of the Agricultural Research Council, and with the aid of grants from the Development Fund, by the Bureau of Animal Population, Oxford University. The results of these investigations are available to the Ministry of Agriculture and full advantage will be taken of them in securing publicity as to methods of destruction of rats and mice.
As regards the second and third parts of the Question, the execution and enforcement of the Rats and Mice (Destruction) Act, 1919, are vested in certain local authorities, and while some of these are fully alive to the necessity of a strict enforcement of the provisions of the Act, the question of an intensive national campaign during the present emergency, to secure, under special powers, the destruction of rats and mice is under consideration by the Ministry in consultation with other Government Departments concerned.

ECONOMIC AND COMMERCIAL PROBLEMS.

Sir Joseph Leech: asked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that the absence of Departmental imaginative fore-thought has clogged war preparations and commercial effort; and will he set up a non-political panel of persons trained in the prudent expenditure of money for the development of commerce to advise what action should be taken in anticipation of events arising from the war?

The Prime Minister (Mr. Chamberlain): I do not accept the reflection contained in the first part of my hon. Friend's Question, and I see no necessity for the establishment of a further body, additional to those already established, for the survey of economic and commercial problems thrown up by the war.

AFFORESTATION.

Sir Granville Gibson: asked the Prime Minister whether he will, in preparing schemes of employment for demobilised men after the cessation of hostilities, request his economic advisers to


examine the policy and activities of the Forestry Commission, with a view to extending uses of areas under its control beyond arboriculture and kindred efforts and to ascertain how the effectiveness of the official staff can be increased?

The Prime Minister: The points to which my hon. Friend has drawn attention all bear on forest policy, which will no doubt have to be revised in the light of experience gained during the war. The Forestry Commissioners have the position under constant consideration with a view to advising His Majesty's Government in due season.

Mr. Gallacher: Will the Prime Minister see to it that Service men are employed by the Forestry Commission after the war and that the Commission pay better wages than they are paying now?

Oral Answers to Questions — FOOD SUPPLIES.

MAIZE AND BARLEY.

Mr. De la Bère: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether, in connection with maize and barley held for emergency in county warehouses, which are usually held by selected merchants for purpose of preventing pedigree stock having to be slaughtered through shortage of food, he will make some statement as to what demand pedigree stock owners have made upon these sources of supply?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Mr. Lennox-Boyd): Out of the 5,400 tons of maize and barley placed in the county emergency reserves in England and Wales from the middle of February to the middle of March the quantity released up to the end of March amounted to about 950 tons. Issues from the reserves are made only in cases of genuine hardship, but they are not confined to pedigree stock owners.

SUGAR (CANNING INDUSTRY).

Mr. De la Bère: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether he will consider taking 50 per cent. as a basis to the end of September, 1939, in respect of sugar for canning factories throughout the country, in place of the basic 50 per cent. for 1938, since 1938 was recorded as an abnormal year?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: To vary the basic year to meet the views of individual industries would create fresh anomalies. Further consideration is, however, being given to the sugar allowance to the canning industry.

BUTTER.

Sir R. Clarry: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether it is the desire of his Department that consumers who can afford it should purchase the weekly additional four ounces of butter ration although with, reasonable care and undue sacrifice they could do without it, or whether he is advising consumers refraining from the purchase of the full eight ounces of butter per week and devoting the money so saved to other objects which do not involve foreign imports and purchases?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The supply of butter is subject to seasonal fluctuations, and the ration is fixed in relation to the stocks which are, for the time being, available for consumption. I see no reason, at the present stage, to suggest that national interests are served in the case of butter by voluntary rationing at a lower level than the official rationing.

Mr. T. Williams: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food what instructions have been given to farmers who produce small quantities of butter from their surplus milk; and whether they are allowed to sell, give away or dispose of it in any manner?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Farmers who make their own butter may sell or give their output to registered customers against ration coupons, or to retailers or wholesalers who have to make a corresponding reduction in their appplications for national butter. All sales must be within the terms of the Butter (Maximum Prices) Order, 1940.

Mr. Williams: Is the Parliamentary Secretary not aware that no consumer would give coupons to a small farmer who produced such a small quantity of butter, since he might not have any butter available? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I refer to those farmers who only occasionally have a surplus of milk which they must turn into butter, and will he tell the House what they should do?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Actually, a certain number of people have registered with farmers. The difficulty to which the hon. Gentleman draws attention is one which is bound to confront anybody concerned with the rationing of such a commodity.

Mr. Williams: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that farmers producing butter have been told to bury their butter?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I cannot accept that. If the hon. Gentleman has any real information to that effect, I should be interested to see it.

Lieut.-Colonel Acland-Troyte: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the regulations issued by his Department, with regard to prices, have killed the farm-house butter trade? Was this his intention?

DANISH BUTTER AND BACON.

Mr. Levy: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether he can now give any estimate of the effect on the supplies of butter and bacon of the German occupation of Denmark?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Reserves of both butter and bacon are available in the United Kingdom sufficient to enable the present distribution of these commodities to be continued for some time. When the supply position makes it desirable to reduce the amount of the present rations, an announcement to that effect will be made.

Mr. Levy: Do I understand from the Parliamentary Secretary's reply that the occupation of Denmark makes very little difference, that this country will be able to get supplies from other sources and that the general public will have no cause for anxiety?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The hon. Gentleman must certainly understand that we have insured against the contingency which has now arisen.

BREAD.

Sir Frank Sanderson: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether, in view of the undertaking given by the London Bakers Advisory Committee that free samples of bread would not be condoned during the war, he is now in a position to announce his decision on the appeal against withdrawal of a licence to trade to Messrs.

Weston-Chibnalls, of Hayes, Middlesex, by the Ealing Local Food Control Committee?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The matter to which my hon. Friend refers is still under consideration. It is hoped that a decision will be reached at an early date.

POTATOES.

Mr. R. Gibson (for Mr. Jackson): asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether he will inform the House as to who will receive the 5s. per ton levy on the surplus potatoes which the Ministry of Food itself is buying for the purpose of turning into potato meal?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The levy is not payable on the potatoes bought for this purpose, but only on potatoes bought for human consumption.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF SUPPLY.

ALUMINIUM.

Mr. A. Edwards: asked the Minister of Supply whether he is purchasing the total output of the Northern Aluminium Company, Limited?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Supply (Colonel Llewellin): No, Sir. This company are not producers of aluminium metal but are engaged in the rolling and extruding of the metal and its alloys. I understand that practically the whole of their output is taken by the Service Departments.

Mr. Edwards: Has the Minister's attention been drawn to the extravagant advertising of this company, which gives the impression that there are abundant supplies for all purposes? Is the cost of this advertising to be charged to Government account?

Colonel Llewellin: No, Sir, the Ministry of Supply deals only with aluminium metal. It does not deal with any further process, and such a question should be put to somebody other than myself.

Mr. Edwards: Is the Parliamentary Secretary not aware that the cost of all these things ultimately comes back to his Department, and that if there is extravagant advertising, with a view to building up trade after the war, which is a charge on the Department at this stage, is that not an unfair process?

Colonel Llewellin: The aluminium producers with whom we are concerned are producers of aluminium metal. This firm is doing a large amount of work for other Departments, and it is not a matter for the Ministry of Supply.

ESSENTIAL COMMODITIES (CONTROL).

Mr. Leonard: asked the Minister of Supply whether he will take steps to review the circumstances associated with the control of commodities required for national needs, with a view to taking possession of controlled materials and so obviate the need for successful contractors, in possession of authorised licences, to search for and compete for their requirements?

Colonel Llewellin: The problem referred to by the hon. Member is kept under continuous review. The Government are already the sole owners of many essential commodities, and no trouble is experienced by consumers holding the necessary licences in obtaining supplies. There would, however, be practical difficulties in extending immediately Government ownership to cover all essential commodities. If the hon. Member has any specific case in mind, my right hon. Friend will be glad to consider the position.

Mr. Leonard: Is it not the case that the Department already have knowledge of contractors who have succeeded in gaining Government contracts and who, after receiving their licences to get material, and going round to holders of commodities, have actually been refused a right to purchase?

Colonel Llewellin: I do not think that, as a general case, that is true, but if the hon. Member has any information, I should be obliged if he would bring it to the notice of myself or my right hon. Friend.

POST-WAR SURPLUSES.

Sir G. Gibson: asked the Minister of Supply whether his Department has foreseen and prepared for the difficulties of either processing for sale as finished goods, or for sale as raw materials, whatever post-war surpluses of Government stores may have to be dealt with by means of a Disposals Board, so that post-war losses and confusion may not arise as they did in 1919?

Colonel Llewellin: This matter is being kept in mind. The manner of disposal of such goods must, of course, be determined largely in the light of the circumstances at the time.

RAW MATERIALS (RELEASE).

Sir G. Gibson: asked the Minister of Supply whether, as goods cannot be made for export without raw materials, he will direct all controls to try, in cases of doubt, to find reasons promptly why they should release materials for making goods to increase our exchange credits arising from export trade rather than reasons for delaying or refusing release?

Colonel Llewellin: My hon. Friend may be assured that wherever there is a marked shortage in the supply of a raw material an allocation is made by the Priority Sub-Committee, over which I preside, for the purposes of the export trade, and the allocation is administered by the Board of Trade in conjunction with the Controller concerned.

Sir G. Gibson: Is my hon. and gallant Friend perfectly satisfied that there is no delay in granting the release of materials necessary for the completion of orders for export trade?

Colonel Llewellin: In some cases that must inevitably be so, but we are trying to see that a supply of raw materials to producers of essential articles, whether for the Service Departments or the export trade, is facilitated to the greatest possible extent. The steps we are now taking in respect of one or two raw materials will, I think, have that effect.

Sir G. Gibson: Further to that reply, may I ask what is to happen to firms which have no priority certificates, because they are sub-contractors, and who wish to obtain these facilities for receiving raw materials for the export trade?

Colonel Llewellin: In fact, no priority certificate which is enforceable has yet been issued, but allocations have been made, and the Department has given a symbol and a number which are traced down the whole way from the manufacturer to the sub-contractor.

Mr. Leach: Has the Minister any raw materials suitable for the Front Bench?

Sir H. Williams: What steps are to be taken by a manufacturer, such as one in


my constituency, who, for two months, has been trying to obtain a ration of steel in order to make umbrella ribs for umbrellas for export trade?

Colonel Llewellin: He should apply to the Board of Trade for the necessary permission, and the Board, if they think it a vital export, will no doubt give him the amount of steel necessary to make the umbrella ribs.

Sir H. Williams: Is my hon. and gallant Friend aware that I made that application two months ago and that I got nothing in return except paper?

IRON AND STEEL SCRAP.

Mr. A. Edwards: asked the Minister of Supply what steps he is taking to see that all the scrap-iron of the Empire is sent to this country; and in particular whether we are buying the amounts that have hitherto been sold by Australia to Japan?

Colonel Llewellin: Special arrangements have been made in co-operation with the Governments concerned to obtain supplies of iron and steel scrap, so far as practicable, from the Dominions and Colonies.

Mr. Edwards: Is the hon. and gallant Member able to say that the supply of scrap iron from Australia to Japan has been stopped?

Colonel Llewellin: That is no concern of the Ministry of Supply, but I can tell the hon. Member that the Australian iron and steel industry is working to full capacity and is probably eating up all the available scrap in Australia.

Mr. Edwards: Is the hon. and gallant Member not aware that the Australian Dominion Secretary has admitted that hundreds of thousands of tons of scrap iron are going to Japan and that the quantity is increasing each month? What steps are the Ministry taking to see that these supplies come to this country instead of to Japan?

Colonel Llewellin: It is not too easy a matter, for obvious reasons, to bring large quantities of scrap iron on this long haul from Australia to this country, and there are other and more important cargoes to take up shipping space. We prefer to take scrap iron from sources nearer to this country.

Mr. Mathers: Can the hon. and gallant Member say whether all the metal which is represented by the trophies of previous wars are being commandeered and utilised to meet the need?

Colonel Llewellin: That is a rather different question. We are trying to collect some of these guns, and we hope at the end of the war to be able to replace them with similar trophies taken from the enemy.

Mr. Thorne: Is the Department doing its best to collect all the scrap in this country?

CONTRACTS (SMALL FIRMS).

Mr. A. Edwards: asked the Minister of Supply whether he is aware that small manufacturers who have organised into companies at his request, in order to receive contracts for distribution among their members, are still unable to obtain any contracts from the Ministry; and what encouragement he is able to offer to the hundreds of small factories, and thousands of workers, who are deprived of the opportunity of doing their share in the war effort?

Colonel Llewellin: The hon. Member is no doubt referring to the suggestion which has been made that small firms should consider forming groups or associations among themselves so that one of the firms or one authoritative body may be in a position to tender on behalf of the group or association. Although my right hon. Friend cannot of course make use of firms who are not in a position to supply the stores which the Ministry requires, wherever the small industrial establishments have suitable plant and equipment to undertake contracts or subcontracts, every endeavour is being made to utilise them in the war effort.

Mr. Edwards: Can the hon. and gallant Member say why many small concerns which have formed themselves into companies are still unable to get orders? Is he aware that the hon. Member for Gateshead (Mr. Magnay), who is chairman of a Team Valley company, has tried hard to get an order, but that not one of these firms has got a single order?

Colonel Llewellin: I do not think that is quite correct. We are employing a certain number of these firms when we are convinced that they can supply quickly and efficiently the stores we need.

Mr. Paling: If they are qualified to do the work, is it a certainty that they will get orders?

Colonel Llewellin: If it is the kind of work they do, they will certainly be employed.

Mr. De la Bère: Why should not these small undertakings have some consideration?

WOOL.

Mr. Snadden (for Mr. Hunter): asked the Minister of Supply whether he is aware that the firm of Patons and Baldwins, Limited, has sent to shops in Haddington, which deal in wool, a notice stating they had received a circular from the wool control that it is not expected that there will be any necessity for further supplementary issues against work party orders during the summer months; that they have advised these shops that they have to discontinue deliveries of service shades from 18th March; and, as this decision is contrary to the War Office announcements that work parties knitting comforts for troops should go on with this work as all knitted comforts are required, will he clarify the situation?

Colonel Llewellin: In order to ensure the best utilisation of the supplies of raw material available, the supplementary issues in question have been discontinued for the summer months, but it is still open to manufacturers of hand-knitting yarns to produce in Service shades within the limits of their present rationed output of such yarns.

BILLS REPORTED.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (BLACKBURN) BILL.

Reported, without Amendment, from the Committee on Unopposed Bills; to be read the Third time To-morrow.

ROYAL SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS BILL [Lords].

Reported, without Amendment, from the Committee on Unopposed Bills (with Report on the Bill).

Bill to be read the Third time.

Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

THE KING EDWARD THE SEVENTH WELSH NATIONAL MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION BILL [Lords].

Reported, without Amendment, from the Committee on Unopposed Bills (with Report on the Bill).

Bill to be read the Third time.

Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

COMMERCIAL GAS BILL [Lords].

Reported, with Amendments, from the Committee on Unopposed Bills (with Report on the Bill).

Bill, as amended, and Report to lie upon the Table; Report to be printed.

Orders of the Day — AGRICULTURAL WAGES (REGULATION) (SCOTLAND) BILL.

Order for Second Reading read.

3.45 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Colville): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
The Bill is designed to amend the procedure relating to the regulation of agricultural wages in Scotland. The House will recall that such regulation in Scotland is governed by a separate Statute, namely, the Agricultural Wages (Regulation) (Scotland) Act, 1937. This Act, although later in time than the corresponding English Act of 1924, is similar to that Act in its essential features. The House is aware that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture recently submitted proposals to Parliament for an amendment of the 1924 Act. The proposals now before the House in this Bill are not the same as those which my right hon. Friend introduced, for reasons which I will explain. This does not mean that Scotland is in revolt, but only that the same or a similar objective is being sought by rather different means, means which are believed to be more suitable to Scottish conditions than the proposals in the other Bill. The objective is to increase the effectiveness of the existing machinery and thereby to facilitate the adjustment of agricultural minimum rates of wages on an equitable basis throughout the country. Hon. Members are well aware of the difficulties of labour in agriculture and, in present circumstances, of the vital importance of preventing movement away to other employment. They will agree that a Measure designed to secure stability and a reasonable degree of uniformity in agricultural wages is desirable, and I therefore feel confidence in commending this Bill to the sympathetic consideration of the House.
In order that the House may appreciate the reasons for the present proposal, I will say a few words about the history of agricultural wages regulation in Scotland. For various reasons, partly practical and partly psychological, the processes leading to the fixing of wages have tended, until recent years, to differ in the two

countries. The first statutory regulation was under the Corn Production Act of 1917, when a separate scheme was authorised for Scotland, the machinery of which, like the scheme now in operation, comprised district wages committees and a central wages board. The central body of this organisation had certain powers of veto, which amounted to effective control. This scheme was brought to an end by the Corn Production (Repeal) Act of 1921, and from that time until 1937 there has been no statutory regulation of wages in Scotland. At the time of the passing of the English Act of 1924, and subsequently, Scottish employers and workers both preferred the system of private bargaining, or in some districts local voluntary agreements.
In 1924, as now, we were dealing with a type of legislation designed to improve the conditions within a large industry, and in this kind of legislation it is desirable, as far as possible, to secure the concurrence of both parties within the industry. Since, therefore, neither side in Scotland desired the change made by the 1924 Act, the Act was not applied to Scotland. For the next 13 years this difference between the two countries continued, but the critical period following on the general slump of the early 1930's was responsible for a change of outlook. It became apparent as the depression continued that the arrangements which existed, and which, of course, were not supported by sanctions of any kind, except general opinion, were inadequate to secure a reasonable wage in all cases for the workers. The position was that, while the great majority of farmers paid the best wages they could afford, there was evidence that in some cases wages were being paid at levels which could not be justified. I am referring to the period leading up to 1937. Therefore, an effort to preserve the principle of voluntary collective bargaining was made by the leaders of both the National Farmers' Union and the Farm Servants' Union, but, for reasons into which I need not go now, these negotiations broke down. This led to a request by the Farm Servants' Union for the statutory regulation of wages in Scotland. In order that the position should be thoroughly examined, Sir Godfrey Collins, then Secretary of State for Scotland, appointed a Committee under Lord Caithness to inquire


into the whole problem. That Committee, which included representatives of the farmers and the workers, submitted a unanimous report urging the need for legislation, and this recommendation was brought into effect by the passing of the 1937 Act.
That Act authorised the establishment of district wages committees, of which there are 11, and an Agricultural Wages Board. The Act, however, departed from the recommendations of the Committee in one important respect in that it conferred no power on the Board to vary the findings of the local committees. The committees, therefore, had, and still have, as the law is, a final say in fixing rates of wages in Scotland, the only check being a discretionary power vested in me, as Secretary of State, by the 1937 Act to direct a committee to reconsider its decision. There is no means in the Act for ensuring that such reconsideration will be effective, and in practice the discretion has not been exercised. Therefore, the position is that at present the Agricultural Wages Board's function is really a formal one. The Board bring into effect the decisions of the district committees, but they have no power to influence such decisions either by laying down principles of general guidance or by reviewing the decisions when they have been reached. It will be observed from the nature of the machinery that it is quite possible, in theory at least, for committees to reach widely divergent decisions on the rates of wages regarded as appropriate to the various classes of agricultural workers. Over against this, there is the growing tendency, accelerated by the war, towards fixing prices of agricultural products on a national basis. I do not desire here to labour that point, or to give it more weight than it deserves. I am aware that it rather attracts the answer that while some commodities have been priced on a nation-wide basis, others have not, and that in any case there are, as we must readily admit, other items on both sides of the farmer's accounts which vary widely from one part of the country to another. I feel bound to make this observation, and in making it, to stress that in formulating the present proposal I have been careful to bear this fact very closely in mind.
I should like now to say a word or two about what has occurred since the out-

break of war. At the instance of the Scottish Farm Servants' Union discussions have taken place from time to time between my Department and that union, and also with the National Farmers' Union and Chamber of Agriculture of Scotland. In an earlier Debate, I informed the House that the discussions were going on, that I hoped in time to introduce a Bill, and that I was anxious to get the greatest possible measure of agreement before bringing the Bill forward. These discussions ranged round the question as to what adaptation of the machinery of wages regulation was necessary or desirable as a result of war conditions. I took part in a number of the meetings myself, but in general the discussions were carried on between officials of my Department and the bodies concerned. A number of suggestions were considered but failed to commend themselves to one or other of the parties. I do not think it would be of any particular value to traverse the ground covered by these discussions, except to say that among the suggestions considered was the proposal of my right hon. and gallant Friend the Minister of Agriculture for a national minimum wage, a proposal which is now embodied in the English Bill. The lack of enthusiasm for the application of that proposal to Scotland is founded largely on the existence of substantially varying conditions in different parts of the country, and on the practical difficulties which would arise owing to the widespread Scottish custom of perquisites, under which a considerable but varying proportion of the worker's wages is paid in kind—for example, house accommodation, milk, potatoes, meal, keep of cows, and so on.
In examining this question, I was very anxious to meet the views of both sides as far as possible, since in working out and developing a matter of this kind, the good will of both sides is desirable and perhaps even essential. The proposal now before the House, although some criticism of it may be forthcoming, does, I think, command a substantial measure of agreement from both sides, and it is based on the recommendations of the Caithness Committee which represented both sides of the industry, and brought forward unanimous findings. I come now to the proposal itself. It is a simple one. It is that the Agricultural Wages Board


should be authorised to refer back a decision to a district committee for reconsideration, and further, if the Board should not agree with the committee's final decision, that it should be enabled itself to fix a rate, in the light, of course, of the committee's representations in the matter.

Mr. Cassells: At the present time, is there much variation, as far as wages are concerned, between one district and another?

Mr. Colville: I intend to deal later on with the present tendency in this respect. There is some variation. There are some different characteristics in different parts of the country, and the character of the perquisites varies from place to place.
The proposal now before the House would mean that the Board would be able to fix a rate in the light of the committee's recommendations in the matter. The Board would be able to question a decision of any district wages committee which appeared to them to be out of line with the requirements of the situation or with the general run of wages rates, and, in certain circumstances, but only after full opportunity for the expression of the views of the committee concerned, to take steps to amend such decision. This implies no radical change in the situation, since the Board will concern themselves only with the exceptional case, and most rates will continue to be settled locally. The effect of the change will be to accelerate to some extent the tendency towards a greater uniformity of minimum rates over the country. There has been such a tendency. Had it been otherwise, of course, the effects of the Bill might have been much more sweeping. In point of fact, however, there has been, even in the short period that wages regulation has been in force in Scotland, a movement towards something like uniformity. The result of the new legislation will, therefore, be to help forward a useful tendency which has already manifested itself. It will have the further effect of securing that, as and when agricultural wages rise, as they have already been doing recently, they will do so over the country by fairly uniform steps. The Bill will help to remove the incentive to workers to move towards areas where higher rates prevail. Everyone will agree that that movement exercises a very disturbing effect on the

industry from which the farmers are bound to suffer.
I need not expound at great length the Bill itself. It is a simple and short Bill. The main proposal which I have outlined to the House is set out in Clause 1. Clause 2 deals with the constitution of the Board. This is a matter of some importance, in view of the added responsibility which will fall upon the Board. At present the Board consists of equal representation of the two sides of the industry, with three independent members added. I think it desirable to increase the number of independent members to five, and the Clause makes provision for this. I should add that when the chairmanship of the Board recently fell vacant I thought it would be advantageous to appoint as chairman a person with legal qualifications, having in mind the new function which the Board will have to perform. The chairman will be required to preside over a Board which has to make very important decisions. In making those decisions it will have to consider the advice given by the representatives of the industry, and I thought that, as chairman, someone with legal qualifications would be specially eligible. I was fortunate enough to secure the services of Mr. J. Gordon McIntyre, K.C., Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, who, in addition to his legal qualifications, has had experience in conciliation in industry, which will stand the Board in good stead. I know that the appointment of this gentleman is welcomed by both sides. It is recognised that his ability, his experience in conciliation work and his legal standing will be of value to the Board.

Mr. Gallacher: How many members of the Faculty are still waiting for jobs?

Mr. Henderson Stewart: Can my right hon. Friend tell the House the reasons which moved him to increase the number of independent members to five?

Mr. Colville: I decided to do so in view of the importance of the work which the Board will have to undertake. I thought it desirable to have a larger independent element on the Board in view of the increase in its duties, and as to any suggestion that a person with legal knowledge is not suited to act as chairman of the Board, I disagree with that entirely. I


think that a gentleman with the qualifications which I have indicated will be admirably suited to that position, and, as I have said, that view is shared by both sides in the industry. Under the Schedule to the 1937 Act the appointments of chairman and vice-chairman of an agricultural wages committee are made by the committee. The principle behind this provision is that the chairman, on whom considerable responsibility naturally rests, should be selected by the representatives of the industry in the locality. The independent members were not, in terms, excluded from participating in this election, and in some cases they have felt in doubt as to whether they should take part in it. I have come to the conclusion that they should not be expected to do so, and Clause 3 confers the power of election upon the representative members alone. That, again, is a change which is welcomed by those who are interested in the industry.
The Bill will, I believe, further the interests of the industry as a whole. Primarily, however, the object is to improve the position of the worker. I am well aware that the welfare of the agricultural worker is not a matter of wages alone. There are many other factors which affect it, and none more than housing conditions. Unhappily, the war has hindered progress in the improvement of rural housing as of other housing, for reasons which I need not go into here, but which are concerned mainly with the supply of timber. Within the limitations imposed on us at the present time, however, everything possible is being done. I have very much in mind the importance of rural housing and am doing everything possible under present conditions to effect improvements in that respect.
This Bill, however, is a wages Bill. It deals with the problem to which I have referred, in a way which I think is acceptable to Scotland as a whole. Although wage levels, as I have said, are not the only consideration in the life of the worker, they must be regarded as of primary importance, and I submit with confidence to the House that when so much depends on the efforts of our farm-workers and when they, for their part, are sharing manfully in the response to the demand for increased food production, it is only right that Parliament should

recognise their efforts by a Measure designed to secure their permanent interests. Agriculture has a vital part to play in winning the war, and upon the agricultural worker is placed a large part of the responsibility which faces the industry in its task of increasing our food supplies. Last week-end I had to travel some 300 miles through the Scottish countryside. I was impressed by the great stretches of land which are being opened up—in many cases land which had not been under the plough for many years. The farmers of Scotland are putting their backs into the work, and I am glad that we can do something to help the farm-workers who are so loyally engaged in serving the country in this way.

4.8 p.m.

Mr. Mathers: I think the Secretary of State for Scotland will find the House ready and willing to give him the Second Reading of his Bill. The House will also, I am sure, be in substantial agreement with the observations which the right hon. Gentleman made in putting the Bill before us. He has not claimed too much for it. He has indicated that it is to amend the procedure in Scotland in respect of the fixation of wages, and that it involves no radical change in the present position. He has drawn a distinction between this Bill and the Bill which was before the House two weeks ago designed to meet the situation in England and Wales, and has declared his belief—in which I think he is right—that this Bill is more suited to Scottish conditions and more in keeping with the Scottish attitude towards these matters. The Bill will, we believe—and we accept it for that reason—increase the effectiveness of wage-fixing machinery north of the Border.
I have a personal interest in the Bill, because I recognise in it a further step along the line of dealing with farm-workers' wages which I endeavoured to get established when I was re-elected to this House in 1935. During the years prior to 1935 the economic depression had had a very detrimental effect upon wages, and during those years Scottish farm servants departed from their previous conviction that nothing should be done in the way of legislating in respect of wage-fixing machinery. Up to that time they had desired, as the right hon. Gentleman has pointed out, to have their wages fixed


by mutual agreement and not to have anything in the nature of a statutory authority for the fixing of wages. They recognised, and I think there is a great deal in their contention, that when you endeavour to fix minimum rates of wages those rates have a tendency to become, and indeed almost inevitably become, the standard or even the maximum rates. They did not want that then and they do not want it now, but they recognised that the depression had made such a difference that, in 1935, during the Election, representations were made to me by my farm working constituents that something in the nature of wage-fixing machinery should be established. When I returned here one of my first acts was to appeal to the then Secretary of State for Scotland, the late Sir Godfrey Collins, urging him to have an inquiry made into the conditions with a view to the establishment of wage-fixing machinery. That inquiry subsequently took place, and the Scottish Act of 1937 was the outcome of it. The inquiry reached certain very important conclusions, and these were unanimous.
Now we are taking another step in what I consider to be the right direction by giving the Central Wages Board some authority in reviewing wages and farm-workers' conditions which pertain to wages, and adjusting the arrangements in the manner indicated by the right hon. Gentleman. We are here establishing no national minimum, but we believe that under the machinery now proposed the tendency will be to prevent anomalies and that the Central Wages Board will be given the opportunity and the power to "iron out" some of the differences which still exist, although they are not very serious. Taking all in all, when consideration is given to the value placed upon the so-called perquisites or benefits which are counted and valued as wages in certain parts of the country, compared with the actual money paid in lieu of those benefits in certain other parts of the country, we find that there is not so great a divergence as might, at first, appear. But with 11 committees, charged with the duty of fixing wages over a number of different farm employments, there are opportunities for differences to come into existence. We are glad, therefore, to have this machinery to smooth out differences and to ensure that fair play will be done to the farm-worker in so far as it

can be ensured by means of these proposals.
I have mentioned that there are 11 committees. I may say in passing that, although the multiplicity of committees in Scotland is not so great as it is in the southern part of Britain, some of us consider that even 11 committees are more than is necessary to have at work in Scotland in the fixation of wages. We believe that wages could be fixed with a smaller number of committees and that there would be fewer anomalies. I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has not claimed too much for the Bill. I think he is right in saying that Clause 1 of the Bill will do good in the way of preventing differences in wage rates, and it may, possibly, provide an opportunity for increasing the wages of farm-workers. I believe he is right also in saying that the increase in the number of members of the Board will be looked on as a benefit. In the same way, Clause 3, which limits the power of electing the chairman and vice-chairman of district committees to the representative members, and takes it out of the hands of the appointed members, also marks a step in the right direction. I believe that this Bill is generally commendable. In this House we frequently deal with legislation and Orders relating to agriculture. The marked difference between this Measure and others relating to agriculture is that in all the other cases, not directly affecting the worker, they have Money Resolutions attached to them because public money is being put into the proposed arrangements. It means that there is profit for someone. In connection with this Bill, there is no Money Resolution. It is a case of the worker's wage having, as it were, to stand on its own feet. I do not complain about that.
This Bill will call for good will in its application on the part of the farming community, and for vigilance on the part of the farm-workers throughout Scotland. The farmers will be compelled to recognise the value of their workers if they are to keep them on the land. It is regrettable that it is apparently only during war-time that the value of the primary producer of our essential needs is recognised. I hope the farm-workers will themselves realise that they will get out of the important machinery proposed by this Bill just what they put into their effort in the way of organisation and the


real trade-union spirit. Trade-union activity and strength of organisation on the part of the farm-workers is still needed if they are to have the best value out of the Bill commended to the House to-day, which, I believe, will be very generally approved.

4.18 p.m.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: I warmly agree with the concluding remarks of the hon. Member who has just addressed the House. I believe that stronger organisation among farm-workers is desirable from every point of view, and I have myself done everything I can in my limited way to encourage it in my part of the country. I very much hope that this Bill will have the effect the hon. Member suggests. When the present Minister of Health introduced the previous Measure dealing with this matter three years ago, his action was universally applauded in the House, and I believe this Bill will receive much the same reception. I think that in all parts of the House we would endorse the view of the Caithness Committee when they said:
We have come unhesitatingly to the conclusion that there is a direct and immediate need for the introduction by Statute of some form of machinery for securing the proper regulation of wages and conditions of employment.
As a matter of fact, we accepted that conclusion in 1937. Our only divergence from it, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, was that whereas the Committee recommended the creation of a Central Wages Board and the granting to it of powers of review, the Act of 1937 omitted that provision and left the fixing of wages to the county committees. The whole House agreed to that adaptation of the report. I remember that the Opposition raised the question of giving the Central Wages Board powers of review on Second Reading and during the Committee stage, but they did not press it to a Division. The whole House took that view at that time, but it may well be asked now, Why is it that we seek to-day to give the Central Wages Board this new power which three years ago we declined to give them? It might be argued that if it is right to-day, why was it wrong at that time? I think there is a perfectly good answer to that question. When the 1937 Bill was presented

to Parliament the whole idea of compulsory fixation of farm wages was somewhat repugnant to the traditions and customs of Scotland. It was repugnant to our tradition because for centuries in Scotland farmers had met their men at the annual fairs and markets, and agreed there between themselves what wages should be paid. Indeed it was the need for a place to arrange such agreements which brought about the establishment of the historic fairs and markets in Scotland which have played so vital a part in the development and growth of our country. It was only at these fairs that contracts could be made, and all the contracts were voluntary.
In our typical British way we have proceeded in this matter by stages. Where new orders are introduced they are introduced as gently as possible, avoiding anything that approaches Whitehall interference. So we gave to the county committees the power to fix the wages thereby avoiding the antagonism which otherwise might have been caused by giving an overriding power to the Central Wages Board. I think it was a very wise way of doing it. The decision brought farmers and workers together. The 1937 system has worked extraordinarily well, but we have now reached the stage at which, having seen the system at work, both farmers and men are on the whole prepared to take the further logical step—giving the Central Wages Board the overriding power—which as an industry they were not perhaps ready to take previously. We have grown accustomed to the method of fixing wages by Statute; but there are other reasons also why we should now advance to the further stage. These reasons were admirably stated by the Minister of Agriculture. He reminded the House the other day that the fixing of wages by a number of committees led inevitably to the creation of anomalies. Since the war has started the effect of having in Scotland 11 different committees has prevented changes being made quickly enough to meet the new circumstances created by the war. That is undoubtedly so, and it will continue to be so if some alteration in procedure is not made.
The second reason why we have taken the further step was mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman, namely, that the Government to-day are fixing prices, not


of all, but of some agricultural products. There has been a tendency to level prices, and various subsidies have been granted by the State. All this is on a national, and not at any point on a local basis. Gradually it is becoming true that the factors which go to establish wage rates are national factors rather than local factors, and we are therefore justified in asking that a national body, the Central Wages Board, should have the ultimate say in fixing wage rates.
The English Bill appears to present a different system. I suppose in fact it is a different system, in that it requires the Central Wages Board to fix a basic minimum agricultural wage on which the county committees operate, either increasing it or in certain cases lowering it. My right hon. Friend dwelt upon that, and, I think, I understand the reason for the difference proposed in our case. He has, as we know, met certain criticisms. But in practice I do not see that there is going to be any real difference between the two systems. Their effect will be precisely the same, firstly, to level wages and, secondly, I devoutly hope, to increase wages. There is no doubt in my mind that wages must be increased, and increased substantially, as soon as possible. Wages must rise if we are to retain the necessary amount of labour on the land to provide increased foodstuffs for our people. I remember that on a recent occasion I incurred the displeasure of my Whips when I urged and voted for a minimum wage for farm workers of £2 a week. I should not be in the least surprised if the Central Wages Board in Scotland lays down sooner or later, a minimum wage of £3 per week. Indeed, that amount would not be too much to retain the men on the land.
The reason why I take that view is that, as we know perfectly well, other trades in Scotland near to the farms are offering at least £3 a week, sometimes much more, to not more skilled men, and often to much less skilled men, than the ploughmen. Unless the farmers are able to pay at least as good a wage as the neighbouring towns, the workers will gradually leave the land.
I was glad that my right hon. Friend stated that by the provision of adequate wages alone, you will not necessarily maintain men on the land. That is quite true. Admirable as it may be,

this Bill alone will not keep the men on the land, and the House knows quite well why. The reason is that in Scotland the housing conditions of the agricultural worker are on the whole, with certain honourable exceptions, gravely inadequate and, in a great many cases, quite abominable. It was only four years ago that a skilled investigator of the Department of Health in Scotland made an inquiry in three different areas of that country, and came to the conclusion that 75 per cent. of the ploughmen's cottages were unfit for human habitation. That was an appalling revelation to the House.
I remember raising the matter on the Adjournment after the report was published, and the then Secretary of State showed as much anxiety as the House and undertook that drastic measures would be taken. This is directly concerned with the maintenance of labour on the land, and the House ought to know what has happened between that time and now to provide better housing accommodation for farm-workers. A special Bill was passed. What has been its result? A series of strongly worded circulars were sent out by the Scottish Department. What has been the effect of them? We must know whether adequate steps have been taken to provide better accommodation, for, even if wages are increased, the clean, healthy, house-proud ploughman's wife will not remain in a rural slum as so many of them have to do. We are entitled to receive from the Under-Secretary of State some general assurance that the words of my right hon. Friend, "everything possible," mean something definite. I should have liked to see this matter incorporated in the Bill. Why cannot my right hon. Friend demand of the Minister of Supply that all building materials not needed for Army purposes are allocated in a priority way for the improvement of farm servants' houses?

Mr. Colville: Such a matter could not be incorporated in a Bill of this character. It is rather a matter of administration, for in existing legislation there is provision for improving farm-workers' houses.

Mr. Cassells: Is not the fundamental basis of this Bill that the wage to be paid is to be determined by the individual ability of the farmer to pay?

Mr. Stewart: My right hon. Friend is no doubt correct that this is not the place in which to introduce this matter, but I suggest that it would be proper for him, as Minister of Agriculture for Scotland, to present a demand to the Minister of Supply that the first claim upon housing materials, after Army claims, should be that of rural housing.

Mr. Speaker: We cannot turn this into a Debate on rural housing.

Mr. Stewart: I do not intend to pursue the matter further. There is another question which is directly concerned with the maintenance of the labour supply on the land and the production of food in Scotland. Here I must ask for indulgence. My right hon. Friend knows well that, apart from wages and housing, the supplies of water in rural Scotland are very inadequate.

Mr. Speaker: That subject must be discussed on some other occasion.

Mr. Stewart: I recognise that.

Mr. MacLaren: This Bill is not much use at all.

Mr. Stewart: It is not as much use as it ought to be. It is like the other agricultural Measures of the Government; it is good in its way, but I feel that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) is justified in asking the Government to state its general agricultural policy. It has never yet been stated, and these little nibbling advances, all important in their way, do not give us the broad picture which we are entitled to have. There is an important letter in to-day's "Times" signed by. Mr. A. P. McDougall, who writes:
What matters is that owing to the shortage of imported feeding-stuffs our net reduction of food produced in this country, in the first year of the war, is in the region of £60,000,000 If the policy of the Minister is carried out to the last acre and every square yard of land that is ploughed up bears a crop, we are better off by only two days' supply.
Such a consideration makes me feel entitled to regret that this Bill does not include a great many other measures dealing with our food supplies. It is a good little Bill in its way, but it is nothing comparable to the needs of the situation. I hope that this Debate may lead the Government to more adequate measures.

Mr. Colville: This is a wages Bill, and does my hon. Friend suggest that we could improve upon it as such?

Mr. Gallacher: On a point of Order. The Minister has drawn attention to the fact that this is a Bill dealing with wages and perquisites. As housing for farm-workers is in general a perquisite, is it not permissible to deal with it in relation to this Bill?

Mr. Speaker: The first part of the hon. Member's description of the Bill is correct; it is a wages Bill. If hon. Members want to discuss a housing Bill, they must take some other occasion.

Mr. J. J. Davidson: On the point of Order. In Scotland, as distinct from England, housing in certain areas is considered as part of the wages of the worker. It is a perquisite to his wages. Therefore, I would suggest that where hon. Members desire to discuss the Board's powers with regard to wages and perquisites, any reference to housing must come within the scope of the Bill.

Mr. Speaker: It can be discussed only to the extent that the housing of the workers is included sometimes in the amount of wages.

4.38 p.m.

Mr. Wilfrid Roberts: Although I am not a Member for a Scottish Division, I hope the House will bear with me if I make some remarks on this Bill. I would not advance in excuse that I find in England a certain misconception that my part of the world is part of Scotland, but it is merely as a near neighbour of Scotland that I would like to speak. The conditions of farm-workers in my part of England are more similar to those in Scotland than they are to those in the South of England. Looked at from the national point of view, from the point of view of food production and the welfare of the country during the war, the urgent problem in Scotland in connection with labour is the maintenance on the land of agricultural workers and the increase of their number.
While there are probably some valuable long-term effects to be derived from this Bill, I am afraid that we cannot hope that a great deal can be done under it to meet the immediate problem of the shortage of labour. The hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart) said he hoped


—but he did not seem very confident—that this Bill would help to raise agricultural wages. I imagine it is the intention of the Government that it should have that effect, but there is nothing in the Bill to show that that is the intention. In the English Bill a direction of a general sort is laid down as to what kind of national minimum wage should be adopted, but in this Bill, although the Central Wages Board of Scotland is given power to override the local committees, no sort of direction is given to the Board. As one hon. Member said, they could override a local committee because the committee fixed too high a wage. I see that the Secretary of State smiles, but there is nothing in the Bill to prevent that occurring.
Wages have been rising in Scotland, and they have gone up by several shillings in many districts. In fact, the actual wages paid have risen much faster than the minimum wage laid down in the various districts. That is natural at a time when labour is getting scarce. Even so, the report of the first year's working of the 1937 Act shows that there is some advantage in a time of rising wages in having a minimum wage to which farmers must conform. The report reveals that an average of over 20 per cent. of the workers concerned were not receiving during the first year the minimum wages laid down by the wages committees. That shows rather strikingly that even in a time of rising wages due to the scarcity of labour, unless there is a minimum to which all must conform, some wages will rise in some places but in others there will be a considerable lag. I would like to appeal to Scottish farmers that they should not hesitate too much to raise wages at the present time, because it is vital, in the interests not only of the farm servants themselves, but of the country, that agricultural workers should be retained on the land. The other opportunities for employment in Government camps and other works are so great that unless there is a willingness on the part of the farmers to raise wages quickly, perhaps a good deal more quickly than the slow-working provisions of this Bill will allow, there will be a permanent exodus of workers from the land which may have a disastrous effect on the increased production which should be made by Scottish agriculture.
I should like to make one short reference to the housing question, which I

think will be within the Rules of Order. In certain districts in Scotland, if a farm servant's cottage has been condemned by the local authority—and a very large proportion are unfit for habitation whether they have been condemned or not—the farmer is not entitled to make any deduction in respect of the value of the house from the farm servant's wages. Though that provision may bear rather hardly on farmers who find it difficult to improve the housing accommodation, I think it is a very valuable provision, and I trust that the Central Wages Board will use its influence to see that a similar condition is introduced into all district committee wage schedules. I think the House is familiar with the system. The farmer owns the house and deducts, it may be, as much as 4s. a week from the actual wage which the farm worker receives; but if the house has been condemned surely it is only just that the worker should not pay anything but should receive the full wage in cash. If that provision were extended it would have some effect in causing farmer-landlords to repair the defects of the cottages in which their farm servants have to live. I would add my plea to that of the hon. Member for East Fife that every effort should be made, if not to build new houses, at any rate to recondition some of the very bad houses which there are in the country districts. Coming to a more general aspect of the question, ultimately the capacity of Scottish farmers to pay higher wages depends upon the level of prices for farm produce.

Mr. MacLaren: And rent.

Mr. Roberts: And rent, too.

Mr. MacLaren: That is never mentioned.

Mr. Roberts: As regards rent, the Scottish farmer is better placed than his English friend, because in Scotland there is a system of leases which will make it difficult for any increased rent to be charged during war-time. The hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) objects that that is not so, but in the South of Scotland, in the Border districts, that system of leases does still obtain, and it is a safeguard to some tenant-farmers. I do not wish to go into the general question of the level of prices for farm products, except to say that I hope it will be such


as to make it possible for farmers to pay wages very much nearer the level of industrial wages than they are at present. Otherwise, I am certain that if the war lasts for several years, the difficulties of food production in this country will become very great indeed, and perhaps almost overwhelming. There is a large section of people—and they have my sympathy—who will not be in the least affected by this Bill although they are farm-workers. I refer to the sons and daughters of small farmers, and sometimes bigger farmers, who, in Scotland especially, manage the many family holdings which exist. They will not be helped by any rise in agricultural wages, and must depend upon a rise in the general level of farm prices to give them a better return for the very long hours which they frequently work on the farm.
Lastly, I would go back to my original point. I know that the Ministry of Agriculture in England is considering a scheme for training youths, and I would ask the Under-Secretary whether any similar scheme for Scotland is being considered. It is not too soon to make good the loss of workers from farms which has already taken place in Scotland, not only through workers going to other employment but going into the Armed Forces. Unless plans are made for increasing workers upon the farms the food production campaign in Scotland will be greatly handicapped. We welcome this Bill on general grounds. If it does not make a very great deal of difference to the structure of the organisation for dealing with agricultural wages in Scotland, I think there is general agreement that, so far as it goes, it is an improvement upon the present system.

4.51 p.m.

Mr. Boothby: I cannot find myself in complete agreement with the hon. Member for North Cumberland (Mr. W. Roberts) when he said, in his concluding sentences, that this Bill does not make a great difference to the structure of agricultural wages in Scotland and the method by which they will be settled. Although for the moment it may not perhaps make a very great practical difference—and I do appreciate the necessity for agricultural wages to rise—I think this Measure does change fundamentally the whole structure under which agricul-

tural wages in Scotland will be settled. I further think that we are by this Bill setting up a piece of machinery which will in after years be regarded as almost marking a revolution in Scottish agriculture, a piece of machinery for deciding wages which, with the inevitable modifications, will stand the test of time. In the future this Bill will be regarded as a great landmark and one of immense importance to the agricultural industry in Scotland. I should like to endorse the plea which was made by the hon. Member for North Cumberland on the subject of housing. I know that, strictly speaking, it would be out of order to discuss housing on this Bill, but he did make one or two constructive suggestions regarding what might be done in the case, for example, of houses which have been adjudged unfit for habitation which I think the Secretary of State for Scotland might very seriously consider.
This is not the occasion for discussing the general agricultural policy of this country. There was a rather wider discussion on the English Bill, but this Measure is rather more narrowly drawn. Although I do not think we ought to, or can, take the opportunity to have a wide discussion over the whole field of agriculture, I would, however, say this to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland: There is at the moment a very serious shortage of agricultural labour, especially in the North-East of Scotland, and I think we can say on the Second Reading of a Bill which deals with agricultural wages that every effort should be made by the Government to see that as many as possible of the men who are essential for food production should be released from the Army, or from any other Service, in order that we may attain the maximum possible results in the shortest possible space of time. Particularly is there a shortage of labour in the case of certain small farmers or crofters who are accustomed to farm with the assistance of their families and secure the maximum output from their holdings. In my own constituency, at any rate I have found many cases in which the presence or absence of one young man of the age of perhaps 21 or 22—

Mr. Speaker: It would be out of place on this Bill to discuss the question of getting men back from the Army.

Mr. Boothby: I accept your ruling, Mr. Speaker, and I will leave that subject. I was only going to say that it makes all the difference between whether the croft or farm is well run or not. With regard to the question of wages, I regard this Bill as the logical conclusion of the legislation which was passed two or three years ago. Since the last Measure was passed by this House there has been a great extension of guaranteed prices to the farmer. The corollary of guaranteed prices is guaranteed wages, and it would have been impossible to continue guaranteeing to the farmer the price of mutton, beef, pigs, oats, barley or wheat without taking steps to secure that the agricultural workers have guaranteed wages. This Bill provides the necessary machinery.
I agree with the hon. Member for North Cumberland that there are not specific directions that the wages of agricultural workers, which are at present too low, should be raised, but I think I express the opinion of every hon. Member on both sides of the House in saying that we shall be bitterly disappointed if, as a result of this Measure, agricultural wages are not raised substantially in Scotland. I would go so far as to endorse the views expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart) when he said that a wage of approximately £3 a week, rather than £2 a week, for the agricultural worker in Scotland, who is a skilled worker, would very much more closely correspond to the realities of the situation. It is a little difficult to discuss this Bill without taking some account of perquisites, because they play a large part in the agricultural wage system in Scotland. My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) intervenes to say that perquisites are a good excuse for not paying more. I dare say it would be simpler, and that we shall come to it in the end, that wages will be settled on a purely cash basis, and perhaps that will be more satisfactory. But there is one perquisite which is vitally important at the moment, the worker's house.
Any of us who have any knowledge of conditions in the agricultural districts of Scotland cannot fail to be appalled by the housing conditions. They really are terrible, and I do beg my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland to give urgent and further consideration to this particular aspect of the case,

especially along the lines suggested by the hon. Member for North Cumberland. We cannot reform in six months or a year the present condition of rural housing in Scotland. That is beyond the power of anybody, but at the same time I feel that those who are condemned to live for some considerable time to come in those miserable, wretched hovels, because that is all they are, should receive some special consideration at the hands of the Government. On the general and wider question, we shall not prevent the drift of agricultural workers from the country into the towns, which it is absolutely vital to stop at the present time, unless and until we can provide those who work on the land with more amenities and a wider form of life than they possess at the present time. It is not only the question of housing. The question of transport facilities comes in, although they have been greatly improved. The question of cinemas comes in also.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member is going a long way outside the Bill.

Mr. Boothby: I would not go so far as to say that cinemas are a perquisite, but I did think that the general question of the life and the amenities of agricultural workers could be raised on the Second Reading of a Measure of this character. It seems to me to provide an absolutely essential piece of machinery for the regulation of the wages of farm-workers. It may be amended from time to time. It may be amended in accordance with the views of hon. Members opposite, but I think they themselves will admit that the Measure is long overdue and that some centralised form of control over the wages of agricultural workers ought to have been set up long ago, and now that guaranteed prices have been given to farmers it has become absolutely essential. Such a Bill is warmly to be welcomed, and I still maintain that hon. Members on this side, no less than those opposite, would wish that the results of the Bill should be to raise rather than to maintain the level of wages at present paid to agricultural workers.

5.2 p.m.

Mr. Cassells: I am sorry that I cannot share the Minister's optimism, but, speaking on behalf of this side of the House, I can at least say that we shall do everything within our power to see that the Bill is the success which


the country and the people desire. We in Scotland sometimes think that we are rather looked down upon by our brothers South of the Border, and it is very little compensation for us to be told that we are being dealt with in the same way or slightly better than the English poeple. It reminds me of an experience that I had during my first election, when an English gentleman was sent up to speak with me at a meeting in a Scottish village. He was endeavouring to enlist support for me, but he had rather the opposite effect, because he tried to prove to that truly national Scottish audience that the battle of Bannockburn was a positive fiction and had never taken place. This Bill is highly essential to the development of agriculture in our country. I entirely endorse what the last speaker said, that, if it is to be a success, it must inevitably prevent the drift of agricultural workers from the country to the city. I am satisfied that that is one of the main reasons why the right hon. Gentleman has taken this step. For several years past the agricultural employé has been faced with low wages, bad social conditions and difficulty as far as housing is concerned. Against that there are in the cities better wages, better housing conditions and better social environments.
I thought from what my hon. Friend who followed the Minister said that his view was that there were only two parties who had to do something to make the Bill a success, the farmer and the farm servant. I would go a step further. There are three parties to the Bill who will be able to make it a success. There are not only the farmer himself and the farm servant, but there is the Minister. I am satisfied that he can either make or mar the Bill. He has a very distinct and definite responsibility. The wage to be fixed is to be determined having regard to the ability of the individual farmer to pay. I should assume that it is quite relevant to throw out suggestions to the Minister indicative of steps which can be taken to assist the position of the farmer, and accordingly, at the end of the day, if the system suggested in the Bill is invoked, to benefit the position, financially and otherwise, of the farm labourer. My constituency is to a very great extent agricultural. I have heard many people say that the average farmer is a wealthy man. My experience is rather the reverse.
The Minister did not answer the point that I put to him. What is the maximum variation at present as far as wages are concerned? That is a very vital consideration. I can visualise, for example, a low wage for the district taking in the county of Argyll, which, I understand, is a difficult place from the agricultural point of view, as compared with the wage payable in South Ayrshire. I do not want to see any area getting preferential treatment as compared with any other. We are trying to treat Scotland as a single unit, and to develop it to the best advantage. I hope that the authority which the Board will get under the Bill will not be used for the purpose of reducing wages below the level fixed by local committees. I hope the very reverse will be the case and that every step will be taken to see that wages will be increased rather than reduced. I heartily endorse the appointment of Mr. McIntyre as chairman of the Board. It may well be that very rarely will legal questions arise, but Mr. McIntyre is well known to my profession as a man of the highest ability and is held in great esteem by the people of our country as a whole, and I am sure that in making the appointment the right hon. Gentleman will be well served.

Mr. McGovern: Is not that an exaggeration? I never heard of him.

Mr. Cassells: If the hon. Member has not heard of him, he should make inquiries.

5.11 p.m.

Mr. Orr-Ewing: Perhaps I ought to apologise for intervening in a Scottish Debate, but perhaps my apology need not be as heartfelt as that of the hon. Member for North Cumberland (Mr. W. Roberts) as I happen to be a Scotsman, an honour which he does not share. I should like to congratulate the Secretary of State on introducing this Measure. Whereas one could criticise the English Measure as having been bred by "Good intentions" out of "Little consideration," I think this Bill was bred by "Good intentions" out of "Experience," or "Commonsense." Whichever it was, the result is certainly a much more practical Measure, to my mind, than that which dealt with the English problem. There are other


grounds for congratulation. It appears to me, not only from what my right hon. Friend said but from what I have heard outside, that far fairer consideration was given both by farmers and farm-workers to the problems with which they were faced, and they have evolved a very great measure of agreement and have brought about the foundation of what seems to me to be a very sound step forward. I cannot agree with the hon. Member for North Cumberland when he denied that this was any great change, nor can I agree with the description given by the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby), when he called this a great revolution in the agricultural system of Scotland. It rather falls between those two descriptions. It is a step forward not in a gradual but in a rapid form of evolution, with a realisation of the important part, played by the agricultural worker in the prosperity of the industry itself, quite apart from the important part that he plays in providing a national necessity, a fact which is hardly ever recognised except in time of emergency. I feel, too, that, in comparing this with the English Measure, there is maintained an easier means of adapting local knowledge to national considerations.
I think that the system under which the determination is first made by the local wages committee, while power is given to override the decision by the Central Wages Board, is a better way of dealing with the problem. It would be overstressing the effect of war-time assistance and war-time methods of dealing with agricultural problems if we were to consider the wages question as being too closely locked up with the question of standard prices for agricultural products. Standard prices must surely be considered seriously in connection with varying costs in different parts of the country. I must admit to a sense of alarm when I hear it so bluntly stated that, because there is a standard price, there must also be a standard wage. If conditions vary anywhere in this realm in regard to agricultural production, they vary most of all in Scotland. Therefore, in that sense alone, the Secretary of State has been immensely wise in maintaining the free use of that local knowledge which has been collected in dealing with the problem of the wages of the agricultural worker.
Finally, while I have a deep admiration for the work of the agricultural labourer in England, I have an even higher sense of the value of the work which his opposite number is doing North of the Border, because I believe that the skill, devotion, patience and endurance which have been shown North of the Border surpasses even what has been shown in the South. I hope that those workers may benefit under the Bill.

5.16 p.m.

Mr. Stephen: The hon. Gentleman who has just spoken was right in disagreeing with the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) in regarding the Measure as a revolution. Perhaps the hon. Member was inclined to give the Measure an importance which it does not deserve. I have listened to the Debate with very great interest, but with only one speech was I in general agreement. That speech was by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Mathers), whom I would like to congratulate on leading the Opposition on this question, in the absence of the Scottish Regional Commissioner and his understudy. I think that the hon. Member knows the position very distinctly and adequately in relation to this Measure.
What does the Bill do? It transfers power to override a district decision from the hands of the Secretary of State for Scotland to those of the Central Wages Board, and it increases the independent representation on the Central Wages Board from three to five. I am glad to see that the understudy of the Scottish Regional Commissioner is here. I did not notice him before, but I am glad that he has been able to get away from his onerous duties in carrying on the war.

Mr. Westwood: The hon. Member referred to is here as often as you are.

Mr. Stephen: The hon. Gentleman is drawing the long bow when he says that during the last six months he has been as regular an attender as myself.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Dennis Herbert): I would call the hon. Member's attention to the fact that the attendance of hon. Members is not dealt with in the Bill.

Mr. Stephen: I am sorry, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, if I was led away by the hon.


Member across the Gangway. As I have said, the Measure transfers powers from the hands of the Secretary of State—

Mr. Colville: The position really is that I have not any powers.

Mr. Stephen: I do not think the difference is very big. If the Secretary of State referred a matter back to the district wages board, any reasonable district wages board would see that some alteration would, in the circumstances, have to be made. Now the Central Wages Board will have this power. I do not think it is revolutionary or fundamental in that connection.

Mr. Orr-Ewing: It is not clear what further power the hon. Gentleman is talking about. What higher power can a wage-fixing body have than the power to fix wages?

Mr. Stephen: The hon. Member heard what the Secretary of State said. A district wages board is able to fix a wage. If the Secretary of State has not liked it, he has had the power to send it back, but that did not necessarily mean that they had to change their position after he had sent it back.

Mr. Colville: I do not want to interrupt the hon. Member, but what I said was that, as the law stands, I can refer a wage rate back to a committee and ask them to reconsider their decision, but there is no means of ensuring that such reconsideration will be effected. In the Bill that I am proposing, the Central Wages Board can refer back to the district, and if the district do not agree, the Central Board will have power to fix the rate.

Mr. Stephen: The Minister has not stated anything different from what I am saying. The hon. Gentleman who interrupted me from the other side said that he did not see how the Central Wages Board could give a different decision if other boards were set up to make the decision. He interrupted me in order to make that statement.

Mr. Orr-Ewing: I do not want to delay the passage of the Bill or to continue to interrupt the hon. Member, but I am sure that he has not understood me. He was complaining that the Central Wages Board have really no greater power than they have had before, and he suggested

that they should have greater power. My question was, What greater power does he imagine they could have than the power to fix wages, if they were dissatisfied with a decision of the district wages board? I still do not understand what greater power they could have.

Mr. Stephen: The hon. Gentleman quite obviously misunderstands what I said. I pointed out that there was power in the Secretary of State for Scotland before to refer back to a district board, but that it did not follow that his reference back would have any effect. This power is now given to the Central Wages Board, and there is the addition that, if they do not agree, they can fix a different wage from that decided by the district board. There is also to be increased independent representation on the Board from three to five. I do not know that that increase is advantageous to the farm-workers. It will mean that farmers or landowners will have five representatives, in addition to the representation of the farm-workers. There will be a few more supporters of the farmers and a greater possibility of a majority for the farmers on the district wages board. There is an idea that such people are independent; they are not. Everyone has his prejudices. Generally, people who are appointed to these positions take the point of view of the vested interests in the county. They are set up by a capitalist Government, and I have always found that so-called independent representatives are anything but really independent.
I was in greatest sympathy with a speech which was not made, but which I could feel coming down to this bench from the benches behind me, when I heard references to the land. There is much talk about the need for agricultural workers getting an adequate wage now that subsidies are being given, and now that this development is taking place in agriculture the worker has to share in the prosperity. Presumably, the object of the proposed machinery is to enable him to share in that way, but I do not believe that he will be able to share very much in the prosperity, any more than he did in the last war. The full benefit will really go to the landowner.
The Bill is a very small Measure that may help the worker in a very minor way. The hon. Member for Dumbartonshire


(Mr. Cassells) and some other hon. Members have pointed to the fact that the Central Wages Board may tend to give a national minimum for the whole country, but the hon. Member for Linlithgow said that the Farm-Workers' Union had, in the main, been against such a development, because of their fear that a minimum would tend to become a maximum for the country. That has been the policy of the Farm-Workers' Union in the past, and was one of the difficulties that had to be faced in connection with the situation. Both farmers and farm-workers were against the laying down of a national minimum. I doubt very much whether the Measure will overcome the point of view of the workers and the farmers in that respect.
I do not represent many farm-workers, but the party which I represent in this House has a real interest in the matter and has done a great deal of agitational work in the agricultural districts of Scotland. My complaint, on behalf of the members of my party, one of the first in connection with the working of the 1937 Measure, was that the Measure was somewhat slow in coming into operation. The Secretary of State for Scotland had to be pressed to say that the district wage was being paid in certain districts. I remember that it took me some months to move the Scottish Department to get the Act operating in the part of the country to which I referred, where the wages were not being paid. From my own personal experience, I recognise that there has been a certain improvement in some districts because of the 1937 Act, and I hope that there will be a certain amount of improvement here. I do not look for much, but I believe that an important matter in connection with wages is the development of the workers' own organisation. One, of the tragedies in connection with rural workers has been the difficulty in getting the rural workers adequately organised. With an effective body of something like 100 per cent. organisation, there would have been better conditions for the workers.
I now come to the question of perquisites. Those perquisites have been used very largely as an excuse for keeping down the wages of agricultural workers. They do not represent anything like the value which has been put upon them, and the criticisms that have been made of

the housing perquisite in connection with wages shows how poor have been those perquisites. I would like to give a word of warning to the Secretary of State for Scotland. While recognising these horrible housing conditions in connection with those housing perquisites, I am not prepared to say that priority should be given only in certain cases. The hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart) spoke quite rightly from his point of view in representing his division, and I am representing my constituents in what I say. We should have priority for both the rural and industrial centres in dealing with those terrible housing conditions.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I am afraid that the speech which the hon. Member is now making is going beyond the Bill.

Mr. Stephen: I am sorry if I have transgressed, but I thought the caveat should be made. I will pass on to say that I think this Bill is a very minor Measure. The question of the wages of the workers is one which will be largely settled by the organisation of the workers themselves and the struggle that the workers will have to make in the not distant future as prices rise and as the national circumstances are exploited by the landowning and the possessing classes in this country.

5.34 p.m.

Mr. Gallacher: The Minister said that during last week he had travelled over300 miles in Scotland and he was very interested to see the amount of new land that was being ploughed up. I would like to make three observations on that remark. First of all, even though there is a considerable amount of new land being ploughed up it is only scratching at the surface of the problem of agriculture in Scotland. Secondly, it is a lamentable commentary on the condition that we have allowed agriculture to get into, that if is only when we get war that we get this particular development. One is entitled to ask, if it has been possible to plough this land during the last few weeks, was it not possible to plough the land during the past few years. [An Hon. Member: "There is the question of prices."] I understand that the system is of such a character that it is not the welfare of the country or of the people, but the question


of prices and profits which is the whole concern. My third point is that this new ploughing-up is not in any way related to this Bill.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Why does the hon. Member refer to it, then?

Mr. Gallacher: I was merely drawing the Minister's attention to the fact that his own remarks had no relation to the Bill—not my remarks.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: It is the hon. Member's remarks that I am referring to. He must confine himself to this Bill.

Mr. Gallacher: This Bill will not in any way solve the most difficult problems that we have to face in connection with wages. We have certain areas in Scotland where there is a certain measure of prosperity. There are other areas that are in the very depths of depression. This Bill will not in any way help to better the position in those depressed areas. The Board has the power to examine recommendations that come from the local committee; the committee examines the condition that exists in a particular area; the farmers in these areas are very poor, and so we have, by this process, an attempt to perpetuate a situation in which you have variations of a very considerable character in Scottish districts. Where there is a very great variation between one area and another, it is obvious that the population will not go back into the area which is in a depressed condition and where the wages are low. Instead of getting the population to go back you will lose more population. We have in Scotland certain areas where there is scarcely any sign of human habitation. This Bill, by its wages system, will not bring back the agricultural workers to those parts where there is the greatest need for bringing back the population.
An hon. Member opposite asked what further powers should the Board have. There is one power which I say the Board should have and one power that it should not have. It should be clear and specific that the Board has no power to reduce a recommendation from a committee, because it is clear that no committee will propose an exorbitant wage for the farm labourer. Where it has evidence to satisfy it, the Board should have power to increase wages over and above what has

been recommended by a committee. In no circumstances should it have power to reduce wages as recommended by a committee.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: I thought my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State had reassured us on that point. I understood that the Central Wages Board would not have power to reduce wages fixed by local committees.

Mr. Gallacher: Of course the Board has power to reduce wages. It is obvious that the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart) and the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) are exceptionally generous in sentiment when they are not being called upon to pay up. The hon. Members for East Fife and East Aberdeen are in favour of £3 a week for the farm labourers at some time in the dim and distant future, but at the present time are they prepared to support a proposal that the Central Board shall have no power whatever to reduce wages on the recommendation of one of these district committees? The Board should have power, if the evidence or the situation demands it, to increase wages over and above what has been proposed by an area committee. I consider that this is of the greatest importance for the purpose of raising the general level of agricultural wages in Scotland. Only as there is a possibility of raising the general level, will the maintenance of the agricultural workers on the land be possible, or will it be possible to attract back to the land the population that have been driven away.
I am all against the idea of perquisites. But perquisites are a feature of Scottish agriculture and the Board has to take perquisites into account. I ask the Minister whether he will put something into the Bill to meet this point. Potatoes are perquisites. If the Board decides that the wages of an area should be so much, plus perquisites, in the form of potatoes, would the farmer be entitled to escape his responsibilities by supplying his farm labourers with his rotten potatoes, potatoes unfit for human consumption? You say no farmer would supply his farm workers with potatoes unfit for human consumption; if he did the Board would interfere. But some of the farmers are supplying tied houses as perquisites and many of these tied houses are unfit for human habitation. Will the


Board interfere? Does anyone deny that farmers in Scotland are supplying housing as a perquisite which is recognised by the Board as a perquisite? Is there anybody who will deny that farmers, having got from the Board a decision that the wages can be kept down to a particular level, because of a perquisite in the form of a free house, are supplying houses which are unfit for human habitation? Has the Board any power to deal with that? I want to know whether the Board will have power to say "The wages are at such and such a level, because you are giving a perquisite in the form of a free house and that house must be such as will conform to the conditions laid down by the 1937 Act"? Will the Minister put such a provision in the Bill?
The hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood), referring to the statement made by the Secretary of State, says that he knows Mr. McIntyre and that he is a very fine gentleman. Mr. McIntyre may be a fine gentleman, but there is always the questionable fact that he is a member of the Faculty of Advocates. We know that the Faculty of Advocates is a regular racket.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member may or may not hold that particular view about the Faculty of Advocates, but, apart from questions of good taste, what he is saying has nothing whatever to do with this Bill, and it is entirely out of Order.

Mr. Gallacher: I would point out that if there is a well-paid job provided under any Scottish Bill, somebody from the Faculty of Advocates is put into that job.

Mr. Colville: May I point out that this is not a paid job?

Mr. Gallacher: There will be perquisites.

Mr. Colville: There will be no perquisites.

Mr. Gallacher: But if there is a job any where, a member of the Faculty of Advocates—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member should remember that it is this Bill that we are discussing now.

Mr. Gallacher: Then I will deal with this particular member of the Faculty of Advocates. The Minister said that he

had put a member of the Faculty of Advocates into this position because occasionally—not often, but occasionally—a legal question might come up. But what is the big all-important question that will be continually before this Board? Is it a legal question or a question of livelihood? It is a question of the livelihood of agricultural workers. If that is the dominating question, and if legal questions are only occasional, should not the member chosen as chairman of the Board be one who has special qualifications to direct the Board on this all-important question of how the agricultural workers are to live? If you wanted such a man, whom would you select?

Mr. Cassells: On a point of Order. May I ask my hon. Friend a question?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: If the hon. Member wishes to interrupt in order to ask a question of the hon. Member speaking he may do so, if the hon. Member in possession gives way, but I must ask him not to say that he is rising to a point of Order when the question has nothing to do with Order.

Mr. Cassells: May I ask whether the hon. Member considers it fair to attack a person who has received an appointment, if he has made no investigation of the credentials which that person undoubtedly possesses?

Mr. Gallacher: I am entitled to discuss what was said by the Secretary of State for Scotland. He said that he had appointed a member of the Faculty of Advocates because that person had very wide experience on legal matters and occasionally legal matters would come before the Board.

Mr. Colville: The hon. Member has forgotten the most important part of what I said. I said that this gentleman had wide experience of conciliation in industry, and that I knew his name was acceptable to both sides.

Mr. Gallacher: But the big question to be decided by the Board is neither a legal question nor a question of conciliation. It is the question of how the agricultural workers are to live: how much it costs them to live, and the general character of life that should be accorded to them. There will be questions about tied houses, social amenities, and so on, and how they


are affected by the wages which the agricultural workers receive. Who is capable of giving advice to the Board on such matters? Not necessarily a member of the Faculty of Advocates, but a man like the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Sloan), who comes from the pit, who has had to work and live on a wage such as the agricultural workers receive. There is the question of how the wife of the agricultural worker is to expend the amount of money that she gets in a week. What does the Faculty of Advocates know about that?
Every time a committee or a board is set up we get as chairman somebody who is called an independent gentleman, who has no real understanding of the problem at all. The chairman of the Board should be a labourer, or someone drawn from the pits, the engineering shops or the railways—not a trade union official, but someone living on a wage comparable to that of the agricultural worker. In discussing the Clauses of this Bill we should have the power in this House to force the Minister to withdraw the member of the Faculty of Advocates, and to substitute someone who understands the life of the agricultural workers, and who would, therefore, be able to guide the Board in dealing with these problems. This Bill will not solve the problems that confront Scotish agriculture or the Scottish agricultural worker if the Board is to have power to adjust wages in a downward sense. If the Board is given power to adjust wages in an upward sense only that is the one way of ensuring a general wage rate in Scotland with the possibility of restoring the agricultural population in Scotland.

5.53 p.m.

Mr. J. J. Davidson: I listened to the speeches of the Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member who led for the Opposition, and the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart), and I feel that in those three speeches very little justification has been put forward for this Bill. The Secretary of State referred constantly to the English Bill on agriculture, and we assume that this Bill follows the lines of that Bill. During all those agricultural Debates great stress was laid, not by humble back benchers like myself, but by very prominent Members like the right

hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) and front benchers on both sides, on the great need for agricultural development in this country, in order to assist the prosecution of the war. During all our agricultural Debates we have had devastating criticism of the small, miserable steps taken by the Government to promote agricultural development. Undoubtedly, the real reason for these Measures is not that the Government desire to do something for the agricultural worker, but that they wish to improve the agricultural development of Scotland, and bring agricultural workers back from the cities, where they have been for so long. In order to establish a scheme of production for the welfare of the country, the Government bring in a miserably meagre Measure such as this.
The hon. Member for East Fife was very worried when he discovered what powers were possessed by the Central Board. The Board can inform a district committee that their district rate of wages is too high if the district rate of wages is succeeding in drawing agricultural labour away from another area. This is the whole scheme as I see it. You are setting up this Central Board and giving them those extra powers, not in order to raise the standard of life of the agricultural workers, but in order that the agricultural workers shall not be permitted to go to areas where a higher rate of wages is an inducement. Under this Bill, if a district committee decide on a rate of wages that would induce agricultural workers to go there from another area, the Central Board can say to the district committee that, within a stated period—and I wish the Bill had been more clear on that point—theymust give reasons why the wages in that area are of a certain standard; and then the Board may decide that the district committee had no right to fix such a standard. From such a decision there will be no appeal. This will result, not in the highest minimum rates of wages, but in the lowest minimum rates of wages becoming established throughout Scotland. This is a Bill to
amend the provisions of the Agricultural Wages (Regulation) (Scotland) Act, 1937, relating to the power to direct reconsideration of minimum rates of wages.
My contention is that a Sub-section should have been inserted relating to interference with maximum rates of pay.


The powers of this Board are far too wide. They may reduce wages where they consider those wages to be a menace to other areas in Scotland. It is all very well for the right hon. Gentleman to say that this has been practically agreed to by both sides. We on this side, particularly, know the position of the farm-workers' union. I would pay tribute to the great work done by the secretary of that union and his assistants for many years in bringing forward the problems and the needs of the farm-workers of Scotland. I refer to Mr. Duncan. It is not good enough to say to those of us who have had experience that the chairman of the committee or the composition of the committee has been agreed to by both sides. We know the strength of the Farm Servants' Union, and that they have to fight step by step for everything that they get. After all the negotiations, to say that they have agreed to this without qualification, in view of the pressure that they have brought to bear to try to obtain further improvements, is not stating the whole case clearly and concisely to hon. Members.
I would like to deal with the question of the appointment of this legal person on the Board. My hon. Friend the Member for Dumbartonshire (Mr. Cassells) has on many occasions in the House of Commons complained that chairmen or secretaries or members of committees have not been appointed from the legal profession. I know that he will extend to a layman the right of criticising even a member of the legal profession. I would ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the objection to a member, for instance, of the Farm Servants' Union being the chairman? I will even modify that and ask what is the objection to a workers' representative and an employers' representative acting as is done in many industries in the country to-day? Why must it always be a man from the legal profession? It has been pointed out on this occasion that he should be a member of the Faculty of Advocates. That is an organisation which is not highly esteemed in Scotland, and in which there are many members who would do anything in order to bring their names to the forefront of public opinion.
Why must a legal man decide the questions that a district committee may bring before the Central Wages Board? Why

should it not be a member of the agricultural industry itself? Why should not there be some more suitable arrangement? The Bills passed by this House are not difficult to understand as a rule. The right hon. Gentleman himself makes, on occasion, clear and concise statements with regard to legislation before the House. I do not see any necessity therefore to have a member of the learned profession to discuss the question of farm workers' wages. I trust that that question will be reconsidered and that, where possible, the workers' side of the organisation will be represented. The right hon. Gentleman stated that with regard to the appointment of the chairman both sides were agreed, but were the workers' side asked to nominate anyone for this job? Were the Farm Servants' Union representatives assured that any nominations they made would be fully considered? Had they that opportunity? If they had not, it is sheer nonsense to say that both sides agreed that this was a good appointment.
There is one other point that I would like to place before the Secretary of State for Scotland. I would ask whether a district committee, in fixing the rate of wages for farm-workers in a district, take into account the housing accommodation, and what representations the workers' representatives make with regard to the inadequacy of housing conditions. We all know the housing conditions of the Scottish farm-workers. In Scotland, the tied cottage system exists to the extent of almost 100 per cent. I would like to know what power the worker's representatives are to have in making representations, where a district committee has allowed a certain amount for housing accommodation, to the effect that the allowance is inadequate and that the house in question is not worth one-tenth of the allowance laid down—as is generally the case? To what court of appeal will they be able to apply? I believe that if the right hon. Gentleman had left a right of appeal to the Secretary of State it would have considerably strengthened the Bill. The members of the district committee understand the agricultural customs of the area and have a more intimate knowledge of the immediate problems than any outsiders. Should they come into dispute with the Central Wages Board, the latter will have complete authority


to say to them, "You can make representations, but we have the absolute power to say that your recommendations shall not be carried into effect and that our plan must be operated by your district." What we desire to see in agriculture to-day is a better feeling and understanding among all sections of that great industry, and I greatly fear the result of this power being vested in the Central Wages Board, which cannot have the same knowledge of local conditions as the district committees. It will tend to cause disputes which would have been avoided if the whole matter could have been remitted on appeal to the right hon. Gentleman himself.
This is a meagre attempt to deal with the question. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Mathers), who spoke on this point, said that he had been in touch with the representatives of the Farm Servants' Union, and pointed out that they had agreed that this Measure should not be opposed. The right hon. Gentleman opposite may smile, but we have had unions coming to the Opposition in the House of Commons and, because they were getting a small measure of advance, or because a Bill did not materially affect their conditions, saying, "There is not much harm in the Bill although there is not much good." I think that that is all that can be said about this Measure. The Secretary of State for Scotland, by the use of some words, has surrounded the real purpose of the Central Wages Board. He has kept away from hon. Members the fact that the Central Wages Board can reduce the wages in any district, and that will tend to lower the minimum rate of wages in Scotland. Agriculture in Scotland as well as in England, calls for a big policy and for generosity from the Government. As has been pointed out repeatedly, it is an industry upon which we shall depend for our ultimate survival, and halting, hesitating, little steps, such as these, in which the rights and privileges of those in power are constantly surrounded by words of protection, will not do anything to better agriculture in Scotland, and, in my opinion, will not advance one whit the demands of one of the most important sections of the community—the farm workers of Scotland.

6.12 p.m.

Mr. Sloan: Faced with the limitations of the discussions on this Bill, I do not think that it will take me very long to say all that is left for me to say. When this Bill was introduced I thought that we would be able to discuss agriculture in general, but it has been hemmed around so closely that that is impossible. The Bill which has been presented to the House of Commons this afternoon is one of the most footling that has ever been presented to this House. The Minister and the House must have realised it, because there is to be a very important discussion after we have finished this Bill on the location of industry, and it was expected that Scotland would be shovelled off the map in order to allow the discussion to proceed. The Secretary of State for Scotland stated that one of the difficulties was that in regard to the English Bill England started from a certain minimum, but in this Bill there is no minimum. I think that that is the chief defect of the Bill. In any Bill for the regulation of wages the first thing that ought to be done is to fix a definite minimum wage below which wages cannot go. That the generally accepted practice in every other industry should not be acceptable to agriculture is something that I cannot really understand.
The agricultural worker is expected under the provisions of this Bill to look forward to the day when he may have a decent wage. It has been suggested in some quarters of the House already that by and by he might reach the magnificent sum of £3 a week—not to-day, nor tomorrow, but some day, by and by. To an agricultural worker and his wife and four children—they still have families, unfortunately, in the agricultural districts—£3 a week would mean the magnificent sum of 10s. a week each. Yet the Government are getting over the difficulties with which they have been met by offering 10s. 6d. a week for the maintenance of an evacuee. I think that a great deal of difficulty has been created by the use of the term "agricultural labourer." The agricultural worker is not a labourer. We hear in general terms about the bricklayer's labourer, or the plasterer's labourer, or the general labourer, and the word "labourer" always carries with it a lower standard of


wage than that of the skilled craftsman. I want to suggest, most respectfully, that the agricultural worker is not a labourer. He is a skilled craftsman; as a matter of fact, he has a dozen skilled trades at his finger ends, and I would ask any hon. Member of this House who has been reared in an agricultural district to try any one of the 12 trades. He will soon discover whether or not an agricultural worker is a skilled craftsman. The first charge upon any industry ought to be a living wage to the workers engaged in it. There has been no reluctance or hesitation on the part of the House to provide doles, grants or subsidies to help the output of agricultural produce, and we ought to have just as little hesitation in fixing wages at a standard that will allow a decent living for the agricultural worker.
Do we realise how many things the agricultural worker does produce—milk, butter, cheese, eggs, meat, cereals, wheat and oats, all required for human consumption? It is a travesty that workers in any industry who produce goods are always the last to receive them. A coal miner produces coal and sits by an empty grate; the worker in the clothing industry goes naked; shoemakers go bare-footed and makers of motor cars have to walk. The agricultural worker who produces food goes without food. I live in a very important agricultural area, and as a member of an education authority I have seen agricultural workers asking for boots for their children who are attending school. The tragedy of it was that the wages scale brought them within the ambit of the scale provided by the education authority for the provision of boots and clothing for children.
This Bill will not put a single penny into the pockets of the agricultural workers. They have the right to appeal to boards. Those of us who know something about agricultural committees know that agricultural workers have very little respect for them. They are so packed and often such decisions are given that they do not meet with the approval of the workers in the vicinity. At a time when you ought to have agricultural workers at peace, the situation is becoming very difficult. You cannot cut off huge supplies from Denmark and replace 6,000 tons of butter a month without doing something to help the agricultural workers to do it. There is not a single line or syllable in this Bill that will enable

agricultural workers to do that very important job.
The Secretary of State mentioned housing, which, I may say, is very closely linked with the question of the wages of the agricultural worker in every agricultural district in this country and, more so, in Ayrshire. We have had deplorable statements made in regard to the conditions of many agricultural houses. The hon. Member for East Fife (Mr.Henderson Stewart) asked the Minister what he was doing in regard to housing. I do not know that but I can tell the House what the Minister is doing to prevent housing. I can tell the House that a circular was sent to local authorities which prevented them proceeding with housing under the Rural Housing Act. Restrictions are such that no local authority will be able to proceed under the Act and replace the houses which have been condemned in this House. It is a pity that the Government, when they have an opportunity of placing agricultural workers on a decent basis, have not taken the necessary steps in this present Bill. If the agricultural workers are expecting something from this Measure, they are doomed to disappointment. The hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) put his finger on the spot when he stated that the difficulty of agricultural workers in the country was the lack of organisation. When agricultural workers have sufficient sense to organise themselves as closely as the Farmers' Union is organised then they will have immediate results, both in this House and outside.
In conclusion, I would say that I do not think you will do anything by this Bill to relieve the conditions of the workers in my constituency, and they are not the worst by any means. The very fact that you have disappointed them will make them realise that there is no hope for them here and will, perhaps, drive them to organise, not only against their employers, but against the Government of the country.

6.25 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Captain McEwen): I would again emphasise what has already been said this afternoon—that this is a wages Bill. As such, I maintain that it has received a very gratifying meed of approval in spite of the last four speeches to which we have listened. I would like to say


a word about some of the points raised during the course of the Debate. First, I would say to the hon. Member who has just resumed his seat that I have, also, a long knowledge of South Ayrshire, and it seems to me possible that the agricultural workers there may be surprised to learn, when they read his speech, that they are in any way responsible for making cheese. The hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher), the hon. Member for Maryhill (Mr. Davidson), and others raised the question of the powers of the Board, and I rather gathered that the view of the hon. Member for West Fife was that the Board's powers were not sufficiently wide. It is quite true, of course, that the Board, as constituted, has not every kind of power. It lacks, for example, power of arbitrary liquidation, among others, but I would like to make quite clear the point as to the revising powers which it actually possesses. It has powers to revise—up as well as down—and I would point out that that was also part of the recommendation of the Caithness Committee which was agreed to by both sides.
The hon. Member for Maryhill raised another point dealing with the appointment of the new chairman of the Board, and in that connection I would like to thank the hon. Member for Dumbartonshire (Mr. Cassells) for his laudatory remarks, with which I am sure hon. Members heartily agree, about Mr. McIntyre. The hon. Member for Maryhill and the hon. Gentleman the Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) emphasised the point that there was no such thing—and I have every reason to suppose they sincerely believe it—as an independent mind. Such has not been my experience, and I maintain, without hesitation, that in spite of what they and others may think, there is such a thing. It is very valuable, and we believe we shall have the use of such minds on this particular Board. In answer to the somewhat derogatory speeches about this Measure, I would like to point out that the Farm Servants' Union place a higher value on this Bill than any of the last four speakers.
The question of perquisites was also raised, and there is nothing here or elsewhere which compels farm-workers to accept perquisites. The minimum rate fixed is a total cash wage. Values are

placed upon perquisites by committees, and if perquisites are accepted by workers, deductions cannot exceed the value fixed by a committee. A committee can also determine the maximum extent to which perquisites may be given in lieu of cash. Further, I am advised that the Board will have full power to revise any finding of a committee in regard to perquisites.

Mr. Davidson: Suppose the district committee fixes perquisites at so much and the Central Board decides against the district committee. Is that the final word, or is there any appeal?

Captain McEwen: That is the final word.

Mr. Davidson: That is all I want to know.

Captain McEwen: It is also part of the recommendation of the Caithness Committee. The hon. Member for Dumbartonshire talked about the variations in the rate of wages in different parts of Scotland. It is difficult to draw an exact comparison between the rate of wages in different districts because of the varying conditions in the districts, for example, the number of weekly hours to which the wages relate, but, subject to that qualification, the wages paid at present reveal certain differences between the highest and the lowest in different districts. Let me give a few figures. The lowest wage for grieves is 38s. 6d. and the highest48s. 6d., for cattlemen 38s. 6d. and 46s. 6d., for ploughmen and horsemen 37s. and 42s., and for other workers who are not classified 34s. 6d. and 39s. 6d. That is a variation of between 10s. and 5s.

Mr. Cassells: The hon. and gallant Member will agree that these are considerable variations. May we have an undertaking that everything possible will be done under this Measure to prevent such fluctuations?

Captain McEwen: It is true that the variations are considerable, but at the same time the differences in conditions are likewise considerable. While I cannot give an undertaking of the kind asked for by the hon. Member, I hope that one of the effects of the Bill will be to iron out such differences. May I say again that none of the members of the Board are paid, the chairman included. The hon.


Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart) raised a point which was perhaps not strictly relevant to the Bill, but as it has been mentioned by other hon. Members I cannot ignore it altogether. That is the question of housing. While I agree that in some parts of Scotland you will find conditions in rural houses which would correspond to the extremely black picture that has been painted by hon. Members—the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) among them—it is not universal, and I must bring to the notice of the House the fact that another side of the picture exists. That is the extremely good work carried out over a long period of years under the Rural Housing Acts. If the hon. Member would like to see an example of the working of the Rural Housing Act and an example of good housing in contradistinction to the picture he drew, I would invite him to the counties of East Lothian and Berwickshire where he will find conditions which are very different.
The hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Sloan) made a statement which cannot be allowed to pass uncontradicted. He said that the Department are now forbidding the continuance of rural housing. The hon. Member must be aware that there; is a war going on and that there is a very great shortage of timber. It is almost entirely due to that that strictures have been made, but at the same time the Government are continuing to pay subsidies in respect of rural houses. The hon. Member for North Cumberland (Mr. W. Roberts) remarked that this was not so precise a Bill as its English equivalent. That may be so, but it is only fair to remind him that neither farm servants nor farmers would look at a Bill similar to the one passed for England.

Mr. Boothby: And ours is a better Bill.

Captain McEwen: The hon. Member made another point about a training scheme for youths. He gave us to understand that such a scheme was in being in England, and he wanted to know what was happening in Scotland. Such a scheme may be in being in a very embryonic form in England, and as far as we are concerned North of the Border we have such a scheme under close attention at the present time. I do not think I can deal with another point raised by the hon. Member for East Aberdeen because he hardly had time to develop it—the

release of key men—before he was called to order, and I do not want to run a similar risk. The background of this Bill, which admittedly deals with one phase of agricultural life in Scotland, goes back a long way. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has already given a sketch of that background. May I remind the House that some six or seven years ago there was a great desire to obtain a scheme of collective bargaining with regard to wages in Scotland, and I myself at that time did what I could in my own small sphere to bring it into being. It was not possible, and once it was found to be an imposible way of dealing with this question it was inevitable that sooner or later we should reach the stage we have in this Bill. The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Mathers) commended the Bill as one designed to standardise the rate of wages in Scotland of agricultural workers, as one which would prevent anomalies. I believe it will do both, and I hope also that it will prevent, as some hon. Members have suggested, a further drift to the towns. The Bill will require the good will and vigilance of farmers and farm-workers, and I venture the prediction that neither will be lacking. I commend the Bill to the House.

Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time," put, and agreed to.

Bill read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for To-morrow.—[Mr. Buchan-Hepburn,]

Orders of the Day — DISTRIBUTION OF THE INDUSTRIAL POPULATION.

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That the Report of the Royal Commission on the Distribution of the Industrial Population be now taken into consideration."—[Mr. Elliot,]

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I ought to point out that on the form of this Motion, which is that the report be now taken into consideration, it would not be relevant or in order to discuss the report or anything, but I have Mr. Speaker's authority to say that on this occasion he is prepared to allow a greater elasticity in debate so that reference can be made to and discussion take place upon the contents of the report, if that is the wish of the House, provided that this receives the general


assent of the House, which I take it is the case. But it must be understood that this is not to be regarded as a precedent for the future.

6.42 p.m.

Mr. Lawson: May I thank you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, for your guidance in this matter and say that we shall not only try to keep to the conditions you have laid down, but that we appreciate the courtesy of Mr. Speaker and yourself, and indeed of the Government, in allowing us to make a generous reference to the report when discussing the question of the location of industry. There are some who say that this question in a time of war has only an academic interest, but I think we shall be able to prove during the Debate that it has a very fundamental interest not only to war conditions but to the conditions of the country in the future. The House and the country owe a great debt to the members of the Commission, who have sat for two years, have held a large number of meetings and heard a great many witnesses. Their duties have been very hard, and I think it is only right that we should say how much we appreciate the way they have performed their task and how much the country owes them for their report.
There is a general understanding in the House, though not in the country, that this report is due to the emergence and the persistence of the Special Areas of the country. The attention of the country was drawn to the conditions that prevailed in the Special Areas, which represented only a small portion of the depressed areas. Those depressed areas were caused very largely by fundamental changes that were taking place in industry in this country and in many other countries. It is necessary to emphasise that fact because there seems to be a general impression outside the Special Areas—and I am not sure that it is not held by some hon. Members and even some Members of the Government—that now that war work has come to the Special Areas, that problem is solved. One thing which the Commission emphasise strongly is that the question is a persistent one, and that there is a certainty that, owing to developments due to war conditions, not only will there be Special Areas after the war, but

that, in fact, we are almost creating them by these war conditions. The Special Areas were areas covered mainly by heavy industries, and as mining is one of the most outstanding of heavy industries, the mining areas were most affected.
Out of the dolorous conditions existing in the Special Areas, side by side with the growth of great industries in large new areas, there emerged the need for considering the direction of industry and the location of certain types of industry in places where the population lives instead of taking the population to those places where anyone has the right to plant an industry. The Commission stressed very strongly a suggestion made in his first report by the first Commissioner for the Special Areas, Sir Malcolm Stewart. I should like to mention here a thing which has been too much taken for granted and to which reference ought to be made. It is that some of the people who became Commissioners for the Special Areas, and who had very great industrial experience behind them, gave their services free. In his first report, Sir Malcolm Stewart said that he had noticed tens of thousands of people being brought from Wales and Durham and some from Scotland, and he suggested that it would be a far better thing if, instead of bringing people from those industrial areas to industries in the south, industries were taken to the industrial areas. Therefore, he suggested that an embargo should be placed upon the development of industry in Greater London, and he suggested, further, that nobody should be allowed to establish a factory without getting a licence to do so.
At that time I thought—as I still think—that it would have been better if the Government had given more serious consideration to that proposal. I admit that the Prime Minister was right when he observed that the proposal had a wider application than to London. He pointed out that similar developments were taking place in other great areas, particularly in the South and the West, where great populations were growing up. London is distinguished by the fact that there are a great many new towns and industrial areas stretching for miles outside London, whereas in other places—in Birmingham, for instance—the development is largely within the boundaries of the cities and towns. The Commission, in describing


the growth of industries around the London area, use the word "conurbations," and I beg hon. Members not to use that term, for I think it is one of the ugliest words in the English language. The Prime Minister was right when he said that there was ground for examining the question of the application of that same principle to other areas. Therefore, the Commission was set up to investigate the problem. They were invited to investigate the geographical distribution of the industrial population of Great Britain and the probable direction of any change in that distribution in the future, and to consider the social, economic and strategical disadvantages arising from these concentrations of industry.
I believe that every great Department of State gave evidence before the Commission; many great local authorities gave evidence, and people with great experience in industry gave evidence; and, generally speaking, I think the evidence represents one of the most valuable books upon our social history that has been published for many years. What the Commission discovered, and what was supported by strong evidence, was that the House of Commons had been right in repeatedly calling for some direction in the location of industry. It is astonishing how often during the past few years the House has accepted Motions calling for some direction in the location of industry, and indeed those Motions were accepted so often that in the end the Board of Trade itself accepted one, after the Commission was appointed. The proceedings of the Commission clearly demonstrated that the evidence in support of some direction of industry was even stronger than the House had imagined in supporting those Motions. Those hon. Members who have read the evidence given before the Commission—and to those who have not done so, I suggest that it is well worth while—will have found how completely the Departments of State accepted the statement which has been continually made by hon. Members on this side—and very strongly by those hon. Members who have reason to feel deeply on the matter because they represent Special Areas—that the Departments have no control whatever over the location of industry.
The Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Board of Trade, all gave evidence to the effect that they

had no knowledge really of what was taking place in regard to the location of industry until after the industries had been established. The Ministry of Agriculture said that, with regard to industry generally, nobody knew until an industry had been brought to the place where it was to be established—that is, in an agricultural area. The Ministry of Labour said that they felt that too often the decision of an industrialist was purely accidental and had no relation, as far as they could discover, to anything which concerned a real knowledge of what would be not only in the best interests of industry or of the business, but also in the best interests of the country. There is a maxim that business knows best where it ought to go, but it was demonstrated completely by the evidence before the Commission—and accepted in great part by the Commission—that business does not always know best, and that, in fact, it would be a good thing for business if there were a Department to which it could go for advice.
An amazing piece of evidence was given to which I should like to make an answer to the business interests of this country. A gentleman went before that Commission representing a big trading estate outside London—I do not give this to attack the gentleman, but it ought to be made known as giving a general idea of the trend of the business mind—and he said, "Oh, if you can arrange Oxford Street sales, first nights at the theatre, and if you can have Royal Academy shows in Wales or Durham, then industry will go there." That seems a frivolous kind of reason for deciding where business shall go. I suggest that the gentleman who gave that evidence was doing no less than expressing the attitude of a great many business men in reference to the establishment of their businesses. We, in the North, know very well that businesses would not go to the trading estates in the North-East, because it did not suit the wives of the gentlemen concerned. I should like to know how far this has got hold of British industry. If this is to any extent the attitude of mind of business men, then I suggest that it is time the House of Commons and the Government said to these people that they are there to serve, not petty interests of that kind, but the interests of Great Britain.
Adam Smith's mind was considerably in advance of those responsible for giving evidence for the Board of Trade. This House would scarcely believe it if I had the time to read extracts from the Board of Trade's evidence. The Department explained that business took its course in the normal way, and that the most dangerous thing would be to interfere with it. The fact is that so far as Departments are concerned, one does not know what the other is doing. I will give two examples which come within my knowledge and which are a sample of the kind of thing going on. There was a company in a great city which had decided to extend its business. They thought, for health reasons, it might be best to go into the country, and they asked the Ministry of Health for guidance on the matter. The Ministry advised them to go to Hertfordshire.

Sir Francis Fremantle (St. Albans): Hear, hear.

Mr. Lawson: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will just hear what the Hertfordshire County Council thought about it. Perhaps he knows the case already. The firm bought a site in a rather remote part, and, I understand, there were no industrial workers there and very few agricultural workers. The local authority wanted to know where they would get their workers from, and the reply was, "From the Ministry of Labour." The Minister of Labour said, "Who sent you there?" and they replied, "Oh, the Ministry of Health." They were told that there were plenty of workers in the North and in Wales. The Hertfordshire County Council protested against the business coming to that particular area because the few agricultural workers in the district would be absorbed and because they would have to provide a mass of houses for the workers, an extension they did not want.
In another case a firm went to the Home Office. They said that because of strategical reasons it was time that in their extensions they went to some other place outside their particular area. They went to Wiltshire, and having gone there, the local authority asked what they were doing there and where they expected to get their workers from. "Oh, the Ministry of Labour will see about it," was the reply, and when they approached the

Ministry of Labour the firm was asked, "Who sent you there?" and their reply was, "Why, the Home Office" These are only two illustrations Only last night the Minister of Labour, as responsible for the supply of man-power in furtherance of the war, told us that he had nothing to do with unemployed miners or unemployed men in shipyards He had no control over them, and all that happened was that somebody established a business, and he had to find the labour. In great areas in this country the result is that whole populations have been evacuated to supply the needs of some industrialist who has established his particular factory or factories without regard to the social interests or the lives of the people. The Minority report is very strong upon this matter, and the Majority report mentions it as well. It says:
There is also the question of preparing for the period when the rearmament programme comes to an end. We consider that it is essential that any action which might be taken should have a bearing on this question. Moreover there are other problems of the future.…We consider that the unprecedented amount of new factory location which is taking place owing to the rearmament programme, and the altered character of war risks, which is causing a substantial amount of re-location, makes the problem an immediate one. It would be disastrous, therefore, if a policy of drift were to lead not merely to the perpetuation but also to the exaggeration of existing evils….It is clear that for reasons of security against air attack the attractive force of the greatest cities is likely to be diminished in the future and industrialists will probably seek to place their factories in more inaccessible positions, quite possibly in the heart of the country, or at any rate some distance away from large towns. Many large commercial enterprises such as banks, insurance companies and public bodies are contemplating the provision of extensive office accommodation either for present or future use in country areas, or in the vicinity of small towns. Some of them have already acquired large country houses for the purpose of evacuation….All this suggests that the countryside will be subjected to an onslaught of unrestricted despoliation and haphazard development of an injurious, in-convenient and unsightly character if the matter is left to the ineffective control we have so far tolerated.
We know from instances that have been given that the Minister of Supply is at the present moment locating great industries, some in agricultural areas. After the war, if it ends as we desire it should, many of them will be surplus, and great surplus populations will be left behind. The House will scarcely believe how difficult it has been to persuade the Minister


of Supply to direct many of these new factories to areas which have suffered in the past, and particularly to consider making them smaller so that they can be used for factory purposes after the war. It has been like begging the Minister of Supply to consider these factors. What happens? We know that when the armament programme had been going on for some time the Minister of Air went down to White Waltham in Berkshire. When we asked questions about it, he said that it was a most invulnerable area. The House made a protest, and it was decided that Lancashire was invulnerable, and the Minister of Air went there.
The report produces abundant evidence that there is no real control over industry, that the Departments as a rule do not know what is happening, and that the chief Department, the Ministry of Labour, which has to supply the labour, never knows until a decision has been taken. I cannot speak of the strategic questions, but they were so important in the view of the Commission that they had to take important evidence in secret. There was enough made known, however, to justify the misgivings of the House and the country about allowing this growth to continue because of strategic reasons. It has been ironic during the past nine months to see the evacuation of the very business people who have always held that they came down to this part of the country because of business interests, and to see Government Departments quickly evacuating themselves from London when for years they stood against proposals that have been made for stopping this growth of offices in London.
I want to say another word to show how wooden the Government have been on this matter and how little they seem to have realised what has happened. There was the case of National Shipbuilders' Security, Limited. One could understand that in the parlous condition in which shipbuilding was there was probably some reason for taking fresh stock of it from a business point of view. It was only after the disastrous cutting down had taken place that the Government began to realise that there was a human and social side to the problem. I challenge any business man in the shipbuilding world to justify the closing down of Palmer's shipyard in Jarrow. There we had great squads of skilled men. The

Minister of Labour said yesterday that we cannot make squads of shipyard workers in a day or two. We cannot, in fact, make them in a year or two. It takes generations to train the men who build our ships. Family after family have followed this line. National Shipbuilders' Security, Limited, closed a great shipyard which built some of the finest of our warships, and the townspeople, whose self-respect lay in the pride of their craft, were thrown out of work. There is confirmation of it now. It was not a mere business matter that led to the closing down of these shipyards; it assumed something like the proportions of a racket. Now we have the leader of these men put in charge of shipbuilding at a time when we want ships and shipbuilding. There may be some explanation. I do not like to mention persons as a rule, but I think there will need to be some very careful recasting of values in the face of the position to which we have been brought.
I want to make a short reference to the conclusions of the Commission. The Majority report has advised a Central Board appointed by the Board of Trade with advisory, but not executive, functions. I do not care, in a short Debate, to criticise too much men who have sat for long on this subject and given to it their best experience, and particularly I do not like doing so without going into the recommendations that each of them made. It is a very difficult problem, but one has to make up his mind about it. I think the Majority report is altogether too vague in its recommendations. It suggests merely that this Board should make investigations—which are to be of a far-reaching character, it is true, covering many subjects—and make recommendations to the Minister. It is proposed that the Board should be under the Board of Trade. Would any Member agree to that after the experience we have had of the Board of Trade during the past few years? It is not the function of the Board of Trade to look after such matters as these. I can understand the Board of Trade being rather conservative, though if they are conservative, they might be up-to-date conservatives. To suggest that this Board should be put under the Board of Trade is to ask for disaster.
The Minority report suggests that there shall be a new Department with a Minister of its own or at least a Depart-


men evolved from one of the present Ministries, and that it shall have power over location. If not actually to direct, because that is a very delicate question, it shall have power over development, the power to give inducements, to continue the work of the Special Areas Commissioners. Generally speaking, they recommend that there shall be a real live Ministry with a real objective making such investigations, giving such information, giving such guidance, giving such inducements that in the long run it will mean the direction of industry. It will help to decide location partly by giving the necessary information to the people concerned. They end their report with this strong warning:
In conclusion, we believe that the country is looking to the Commission to give a clear and bold lead on this matter.
And they say further:
Anything less than a Department, or a Board attached to an existing Cabinet Minister, exercising executive powers and with an adequate staff, would give the impression of seeking to shelve not only the present problems but also those which are almost certain to arise in the near future.
I will conclude on this note: We who have gone through the experiences of the Special Areas do not want others to suffer those experiences, nor do we want to see them repeated. Many of us in our lifetime have seen the opening of great new areas. Many of us miners have seen areas opened, have seen them welcome the incoming of great masses of people from other parts of the land. We have seen communities set up and develop a strong, virile, communal character of their own. And then we have seen disaster come upon those people, and weigh upon them until they have grown morbid. We have seen men who were outstanding, upstanding and self-respecting so bowed down with penury and the burden of material things that they have almost lost their self-respect and have had to accept charity. We do not want to see that state of affairs repeated. I am sure that my hon. Friends from Wales and some parts of Scotland have had similar experiences and can endorse what I say.
It is a witness to the eternal fire that is within man that the spirit of whole masses of our people has not been undermined, and that they have retained sufficient patriotism to send their sons to defend this country. I ask the House and the

Government not to dismiss this subject. I know the heavy duties which lie at present upon members of the Government, but there are men of great social worth and experience who would be only too willing to give their services in this matter. I ask the Government to take this report very seriously, to bring together men with the necessary experience and aid them to take action, in order that when this conflict ends we may not have a repetition of the sad experiences which have been endured in many areas during the last few years.

7.29 p.m.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Elliot): I am sure the House has listened with great interest to the remarks offered by the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) who has, for many years, taken a deep interest in this problem and naturally feels keenly upon it. I feel, also, that we shall have this evening a Debate of great value, because the problem with which the Commission's report deals is the type of problem with which the country had to grapple after the last war and during the years which followed, and it is very desirable, as he says, that we should profit by our experiences, and, as far as possible, avoid falling into the errors which we fell into then. It was said recently that perhaps this country was mad, but, if so, it was with a superb madness. After all, a Debate on the report of a Royal Commission, which was set up in July, 1937, reporting in 1940, in this eighth month of a gigantic war, a war which has not even yet reached its full stature, runs a certain risk of unreality against which we must all be on our guard. Of course, we must set ourselves to tasks of construction as well as tasks of destruction. We intend to clear away many foul ruins before we start to build, but we are going to build, and it is in that spirit that we address ourselves to the consideration of this report of a Commission which was set up under an appointment given, to use the rather archaic language with which the report opens,
at our Court at Holyrood House the eighth day of July, one thousand nine hundred and thirty-seven, in the First year of Our Reign.
I trust that we shall not confine ourselves to things which will arise after the war but shall extend our attention to things which are arising during the war because


the report deals with a situation which had, in many ways, already passed away when the Commission presented its findings. The hon. Gentleman complained that the Government Departments had not sufficient authority. No one would complain about that to-day, when the builders of a new factory have to apply for priority for materials and for every kind of permission. In fact, I have had complaints, not from this side alone but from all sides of the House, as to the amount of authority, the power, the grip, the grasp which the Departments have on the industry of the country, and not at all that it is so thin, so tenuous, so shadowy, so imaginary that businesses can practically do what they like. That is not the main danger that we have to grapple with at the moment.
Indeed, the hon. Gentleman ranged pretty widely over the field not only of industrial location but of industrial and economic policy generally. Many of the things that he spoke of were problems of industry, problems of the sale of the product, quite apart from the location of the plant which was to turn it out. That will be one of the great difficulties with which we shall have to grapple. It is one of the things which make it difficult in our present condition fully to envisage the post-war world. For many years we on this side advanced planning conceptions with regard to the direction of industry, in the shape of tariffs, which did not, at the time, meet with the entire approval of hon. Members opposite. Their objection was the objection which is always raised when you come down to the fundamental question: Is such and such a thing to be done—Yes or No? I did not get a lead from the hon. Gentleman. He said that this Board, for instance, should have directionary powers. It is so recommended in the report. But that is a very delicate business. On what side does he come down? Is it to have a power of veto—Yes or No?

Mr. Lawson: I thought I made it clear that we accepted the Minority report.

Mr. Elliot: That is very interesting because, if you take the example that he gave, one which will appeal to the hon. Lady the Member for Jarrow (Miss Wilkinson), he spoke at some length about the question of Palmer's shipyard. He did not accept at all the verdict that

that shipyard should be closed down. He will say it was not done by a public authority; that it was not done after full consideration. I assure him and the House that, whenever it is decided to close down anything, we shall have exactly the same objections raised as those which were raised in the case of Palmer's shipyard.

Mr. Lawson: But this was not a Government Department's decision. Our complaint always has been that it was made by a body of business men.

Mr. Elliot: I know that is what the hon. Gentleman says, but the objection is not to the body that does it, but to the thing that is done, and whenever and wherever a planning body extinguishes an industry or shuts down a factory, you will have the same type of protest with which the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Lady have made us acquainted again and again.

Miss Wilkinson: The right hon. Gentleman is missing the whole point.

Mr. Elliot: The hon. Lady did not hear the whole Debate. I am not missing the point at all. I give the hon. Gentleman the advantage of the fact that this was not done by a public authority but by a private corporation. I say without any hesitation that, public or private, the veto of the Board which is suggested, the power which it is suggested by the Minority and not by the Majority that this body should have, the power to shut down industries, would cause the very greatest difficulty wherever and whenever it was exercised. As to the Majority suggestion that this body should have the power to veto any new construction, not merely in London but in all the home counties, he might perhaps have a word on that with his right hon. Friend the Member for South Hackney (Mr. H. Morrison). If he did not say anything about it, I am certain that some of the London Members would have something vigorous to say about it. The fact is that these matters are now, to some extent, academic.
It is desirable that we should go closely into all the suggestions which the report makes. I agree that we are greatly indebted to those gentlemen who, during many long sittings, went through so much evidence and took so much pains to read,


hear, and present in an ordered form these propositions to the House. But we are now under conditions in which planning, control, authority is being exercised to an extent which none of the signatories to the report could possibly have envisaged when they started upon their labours and we shall be foolish if we do not take full advantage—[Interruption]. Even when it is done by Government authority, the hon. Member opposite objects just as much.

Mr. Marshall: My point is that what is being done now is not planning at all.

Mr. Elliot: Anything which anyone objects to is not planning. What we like is planning. What we do not like is chaos. The fact is that these matters are being carefully gone into. [Interruption,] The hon. Lady cannot get away with it like that. We are experimenting on a great scale. The Departments are planning, co-ordinating, putting these things where, after careful consideration, they think they ought to be, and at that moment from every side of the House comes up the cry, "How badly this is done, how foolish is the plan, how chaotic are the proposals," and under any planning proposal ever brought forward there would be exactly the same set of objections.

Mr. S. O. Davies: The Government is not choosing the sites of these works.

Mr. Elliot: The Government is choosing the sites and is giving priority in allotting the material. These matters are being settled after consultation with the Minister of Labour as to where labour is to go. All these things happen now, and they are all producing difficulties which we shall have to face. It is no use pretending that, merely by the device of setting up a new Minister, we shall get away from the difficulties. The difficulties are that, when you make a choice, you definitely select one thing and do not select another, and those whose proposals are not selected continue to protest their grievance as long as they have breath to speak. It is perhaps worth while going over the report. I agree with the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street that the Commission owed its origin largely to certain observations made by Sir

Malcolm Stewart. In his third report, he expressed the opinion that the problem of the Special Areas was intimately bound up with the problem of the distribution of industry; indeed the Commission approached the problem from the point of view of checking the growth of large concentrations of industry and, in particular, the growth of Greater London.
The Commission found, first of all, that, if there were good planning, large accretions of population were not necessarily bad for health. They said that the present statutory planning was not designed to check or encourage local growth, with the result that there had been a concentration of commerce and industry in the inner areas. That change had involved acute traffic problems and a serious strain on the workers who were required to travel to and from work under uncomfortable conditions. They admitted that concentrations of industry definitely had advantages, in respect of proximity to markets, reduction of transport costs, and an ample labour supply. There are also the amenity points to which the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street referred, in passing and rather harshly not to say with some contempt, such as that wives preferred to be near towns, shopping centres and amusement facilities. You cannot get away from the fact that the choice of the woman is a very important thing nowadays. [Laughter,] Well, I do not think any hon. Member would deny that; certainly I am entitled to speak on the matter, as I am the only Minister who has specially selected a woman as his Under-Secretary. No one would deny that amenity values are important. You must take into account the tremendous appeal of the big centres of population as well as the more important financial advantage which businesses may or may not get by going there.
The Commission said that these economic advantages were sometimes offset by high site values, by loss of efficiency in transport owing to street congestion, and by the adverse effects on the efficiency of the workpeople of travelling fatigue, factors which are specially important in London. They said that there could be no question that a policy of dispersal of industry from our crowded areas was definitely desirable. The whole development in recent months, and indeed in


recent years, has been, as far as the Government could make it so, on a policy of dispersal. Time and again, we have met a few difficulties because the policy of dispersal has been eagerly followed out. The hon. Member spoke of some businesses which had gone into Wiltshire or Hertfordshire; he does not deny that those instances were a long time ago. I tried my best to investigate the case which he mentioned where he said advice was given by the Ministry of Health, but I wholly failed to trace it. I should very much like further details of the case. I do not know of any circumstances in which an officer of the Ministry of Health would give such advice. I hope that no officer of the Ministry of Health would give such advice without also recommending further discussions with the Ministry of Labour as to the labour supply. Certainly no such advice can possibly be given now.

Mr. Lawson: Except by the Ministry of Labour.

Mr. Elliot: It may be so, but certainly not within recent months, and certainly not while I have had anything to do with the Ministry of Health. It is anyhow an isolated case. I do not think Government Departments, and certainly not the Ministry of Health, are wont to give advice of that kind in the casual manner which the hon. Member suggested. After that, the report breaks off into a criticism of the present law and practice of planning and an examination of policy with regard to garden cities, and so on. They say that planning is not, in existing circumstances, on a sufficiently national basis, and there emerges from the examination a very strong recommendation in favour of regionalisation, by which they mean the creation of large areas of local government which would be of sufficient size to deal more effectively with many matters than is now possible when the largest unit is a county.
There again, hon. Members will not deny that these great regions have been set up, regions altogether transcending city and county boundaries. I do not need to elaborate this point with the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street, because who knows it better than he in this House? Certainly nobody knows better than he on the Front Opposition Bench. When he came to discuss the report he might also have discussed his experiences

as an officer, a very important officer, of one of those gigantic regions, transcending local government boundaries, which the Commission, clearly, had in mind when it made its recommendations. Here again, the course of events has come up with and indeed overrun the recommendations of the Commission, and we are confronted with a much greater range of control, infinitely greater in extent, than any local government body which has been brought into being or was conceived in the years before the war. The Commission conclude with the statement that it was impossible to avoid the conclusion
that the disadvantages in many, if not in most, of the great industrial concentrations, alike on the strategical, the social, and the economic side, do constitute serious handicaps and even in some respects dangers to the nation's life and development, and we are of opinion that definite action should be taken by the Government towards remedying them.
The definite action they suggested was summarised in the three words, "re-development," "decentralisation" and "dispersal." I agree with the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street that it is a little difficult, when we come to consider the definite machinery by which those objects were to be secured. He says that the recommendations of the majority report are weak and do not go far enough. He thinks that the dangers would be altogether obviated by the creation of a Ministry, or of a board attached to a Minister. Then he poured unmeasured contempt upon the Board of Trade as a Department which it was perfectly hopeless to expect to administer such a matter as it ought to be administered. Well, we have made arrangements for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade to wind up the Debate, and he will no doubt break a lance in defence not only of himself but of his chief, because what has been suggested is that no President of the Board of Trade would be fit to exercise these wide powers.
The idea of the Minister is of someone who is not named, because it seems that as soon as you name a Minister it becomes impossible to imagine that Smith, Jones or Robinson, as the case may be, will be the man with the drive and imagination to do all the things which are wanted and never fall into any pitfall. Believe me that even if the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street himself were the Minister, I guarantee that he would not hold office


for six weeks, no, not for six days, without from every corner of the House condemnations of his purblind and slow and torpid stupidity, and the hopelessness of expecting him to do anything that was expected. I am not at all sure that I have not heard a few such mild criticisms, and I am sure that the hon. Member has himself heard them, in connection with his office as Regional Commissioner. The fact is that these things have to be done by human beings, and human beings are fallible. You cannot get ideal things carried out by a fallible machine. You must realise that if you get away from unplanned development you will fall into a new set of criticisms because of the nature of the planned development which you are undertaking.
I certainly, say that the proposals for vetoing new developments will inevitably lead to criticisms of the most bitter kind from those who consider that perfectly legitimate development is being stultified by a totally obstructive and obscurantist Minister or board. I myself have brought forward proposals for development, not to a private body but to a public body, to this House, which seemed to me to be of the utmost value strategically, industrially and socially—proposals for producing hydro-electric power in the North, and for making products of the greatest value, ferro alloys and calcium carbide. Those proposals were turned down by this House, and that seemed to me to be wrong. I should still feel the same sense of grievance that I felt then when my proposals were turned down by the highest body in the land, the House of Commons, and I can assure hon. Members that there is no way of escaping from difficulties such as that.

Mr. James Griffiths: Was not the reason for the House turning down the Minister's proposal because it was suggested that this new industry should go to a place where a new community would have to be provided instead of a place where there was already labour available—Port Talbot in South Wales—and is not this industry now being built there?

Mr. Elliot: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I could argue the case again and argue it very strongly; I thought it was an unsound decision at that time, but I accepted the decision as I had to,

and I do not intend to argue it here all over again. I would say that the hon. Member did not convince me then and he does not convince me now—neither does he convince my colleagues from the North. Whatever the hon. Member may say on many points, such as control by Government Departments or regionalisation we are in fact and at this moment transcending the recommendations of the Commissioners. Let us take the case of London. I do not suppose the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Hackney or any of the London Members, or indeed any of the home county Members, would suggest that the course of events have not carried that out in full measure. I can give a figure showing the result of evacuation, excluding other differences in the population. It is reckoned that at the date of the national register last autumn the evacuation areas diminished in population by 2,250,000 persons of which over 1,500,000 have been lost mainly by London areas. I think the House will agree that whatever problems we have had, we now have a new set of problems which the London Members have brought to the attention of this House, and no doubt they will continue to do so. London and other local authorities are working hard to continue their development along the lines which they set themselves before the war, and all honour to them. They are working hard on the continuation of the green belt, for instance, which I am very glad to see. The suggestion that the checking of the great aggregation in London should be embarked upon has been more than carried out by the course of events, and we should be foolish if we did not examine the results before pledging ourselves to a course of action, even if it is recommended by so great an authority as this Royal Commission.
I have already said a word about location. Let us review for a moment what is being done. The Prime Minister set up a liaison machine to cover the position of the Service Departments and the civil Departments concerned. That machine is intended to secure, in the case of factories, that they are properly sited from the point of view of supply, labour, housing for the workers, essential services, and the protection of agriculture and the countryside generally. The report suggests that the Board of Trade, the Scottish Office and the Ministry of Labour


should be consulted in the case of sitings of this kind. Here is a list of the Departments which have to be brought into consultation before siting can be done: the Admiralty, the Air Ministry and the War Office; the Ministry of Agriculture; the Ministry of Labour; the Scottish Office; the Ministry of Transport; the Office of Works, and the Ministry of Health. All that is being done now. Every one of those Departments has to be consulted before a new factory is sited. It may be said, after all that consultation, that the siting is not satisfactory. [An Hon. Member: "Who decides?"] If the Departmental officials cannot decide the Ministers meet and decide over their heads; if the Ministers cannot decide then the Cabinet make their decision. A Minister is only a Minister. Even the hon. Member's suggestion would not give a Minister the power of finally deciding on a matter over the heads of the whole Cabinet.
If sites have to be found all those Departments are consulted, and therefore I say that the suggestions of the Commission have been put into effect, and more—[Interruption]. Hon. Members opposite do not agree that this is done well; they say that the whole thing is chaotic and that the Departments do not know what they are doing. There is machinery suggested in the Commissioners' report—[An Hon. Member: "It is very casual."] The hon. Member is quite wrong in saying that it is very casual. I have by my side the former Secretary of State for Air, representatives from the Ministry of Transport and others, and they can all testify with me that the examination that is given in these cases is far from casual. The accusation is more often one of a too meticulous examination, of having to consult Department after Department, and that it is very difficult to get a decision and to get the job carried through. The danger now is not of under-control but possibly of over-control.
When one examines the recommendations of the Commission it is a great advantage to be able to test them and examine the facts. We have to consider housing. Housing accommodation may have to be provided for workers imported into a district. In all these cases we have approached the problem with an eye to the future. As far as possible, we want

these houses and hostels to be of permanent construction, so as to serve a peace-time need. In the last war we built temporary huts; now we build houses for permanent use. When we have to provide additional accommodation for single persons we try to do so by the erection of houses or flats of permanent construction which, after temporary use as hostels, can revert to use as family dwelling-houses. We have adopted the same principles with regard to other buildings which are primarily erected for war-time purposes. For instance, we have had to provide a number of additional hospital beds and to construct emergency hospitals. In our siting of them we have borne in mind the desirability of increasing our peace-time hospital accommodation, and have accordingly so arranged their location that after the war they will fit in with the normal hospital provision of the country. I have a statement here about our emergency hospital organisation. I can assure the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street that in this organisation I have done quite a bit towards the re-location of industry. It would be folly to say that there have not been mistakes about these great movements, and I should be a fool if I did not learn from them.
I have already spoken about regional councils and do not need to go further into that matter. Even on the Commission's report, it is not the Government's view that action should be postponed until after the cessation of hostilities, but clearly at the present time, when world affairs are in the kind of flux in which they are now, it would be premature to try to reach conclusions, or even to weigh the merits of the proposals in the report. We have a problem of reconstruction before us of which this problem of the dispersal of population and the location of industry is merely one aspect. The whole problem of reconstruction, and particularly of keying-in the activity of the war years to the early years of peace, will absorb, in future, more and more of our thought and energy. The approach to this problem must be, at present, in general terms. Many of the chief factors, the course of trade in the post-war world, the structure of industry itself, the resources which will be available, are obscure. At present, therefore, the review is properly on a departmental level. The


results of our experience are being collected and examined, and at a later stage, and certainly before the end of the war, they will be brought together and authoritatively reviewed by the Government. Although it would be premature to say when that will be, it will certainly be done in good time. Documents such as this Commission's report, a Debate such as to-day's, and, still more, the lesson of events will be of the greatest importance. We must be guided by events—gigantic, instant, novel events, causing each month a reconsideration of the events of the months before.
To attempt to ignore, or even to predict, these huge children of our time would not be planning, it would be Utopianism. We have to-day, in a world of war, to look through and try to discern the shape of things to come—a task of great difficulty, a task in which unreality might possibly tend to carry us away. We shall welcome the co-operation of the House, as I welcome the co-operation of the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street, in attempting to forecast these future events. In attempting to shape our future policy, we shall wisely use the experience of the last war and of the post-war years, in order to find a better solution than we were able to find then. I believe we shall be able to do it. In the last war, we learned much from the laissez faire solutions which we allowed to be adopted from the Napoleonic wars. Whole generations suffered from it, and, indeed, rifts were created in our social structure. Planning was adopted after the last war, and it had great results. I hope that we shall be able to improve on that after the trouble which we are in now. But at present our minds are bent, and must be bent, on the huge and instant events of to-day. If, and when, we succeed in getting out of our troubles, we certainly hope that we shall be able to plan wisely and well. I do not think that the report of the Royal Commission alone will then be our guide—although I am sure that we shall be indebted to the Commission, and to the members of it, who spent such a long time on its work—because we cannot foresee what the future will bring forth. All our efforts must be subject to the successful termination of the war, which bears, and must bear, on all our minds,

and upon which all our efforts must continue now to be directed.

8.7 p.m.

Mr. Kingsley Griffith: It is always a pleasure to listen to the right hon. Gentleman, but I cannot help thinking that on this occasion his speech will create considerable dismay among those who are interested in this problem. His attitude throughout appeared to be profoundly negative. It seemed that wherever an idea found its way out of the pages of the report of the Commission, he set himself to chase it back again. There is a character on the radio who gives his profession as a "bunger-up of rat holes." It seems to me that the right hon. Gentleman is qualifying for the same profession. He was quite unfair to the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) with regard to the local authorities. It was not a question of one authority against another; it was a question of public reasons against private reasons. The reason for the closing down of the means of employment at Jarrow was a private reason. I am not denying that if you had your national Board, there would be objections. The decision made might be a mistaken one; but, right or wrong, decisions would be made for the public good, and for nothing else. There is a world of difference between action taken by such a Board and action taken by National Shipbuilders' Security, Limited.
I come to another matter. I raise this with some diffidence, because I understand that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade must reply, and it is a matter in which he must have a considerable amount of family interest. On page 94 of the report the Commission call attention to increased land values as one of those difficulties which arise from the concentration of industry. I cannot leave that matter out. The Commission say:
Large-scale concentration has the effect also of forcing up land values within and around an urbanised area, and particularly in its central nucleus. This places a greater financial burden than would otherwise be necessary on industry and on local authorities, and through them on the community as a whole….The result is that considerable sums have to be found from public funds for the payment of compensation in respect both of site value and buildings when public improvements or attempts to remedy the mistakes of the past are made.


And, in particular, they say:
Sir Charles Bressey said that in densely congested areas like the heart of the city of London the cost of comparatively insignificant street widening sometimes worked out at a rate exceeding £2,000,000 a mile, and even this leads to no conclusive result.
Further, the Bressey Report states—I am not now quoting from the Commission's report—that of £120,000,000, the cost of road improvements, as much as £85,000,000 would go in compensation to landlords. These are very significant facts. What is most significant to me is that, having put in this very interesting passage, the Committee break off short and go on to consider the local government regulations, doubtless a very interesting subject. But from their diagnosis of increased land values as one of the symptoms and causes of the disease they do not draw any conclusions whatever as to the remedy. That would have been fully within their terms of reference had they done so, because the task imposed upon them was to consider what social, economic or strategical disadvantages arise from the concentration of industries—and here you have one of them in the increase of land values—and then to report what remedial measures, if any, should be taken in the national interest. They do not even consider or mention the remedial measure, which I would have thought stuck out a mile. I do not press the Parliamentary Secretary to give any views of his own upon this subject, but I call attention to the curious fact that this valuable report, having done one part of its task in diagnosing one of the causes of difficulty, runs away completely when it comes to dealing with the cause.
I find myself in considerable difficulty in discussing this report in distinguishing between short-term and long-term policies. As the right hon. Gentleman quite rightly said, the war has altered the whole position, even since the evidence on which this report has been based was given. If evidence was taken now, it would have to be partly different evidence about different facts. Some areas which were suffering very acutely from unemployment are now enjoying—if one can enjoy anything during the war—a measure of temporary prosperity, but there is no reason to believe that it is other than temporary. That is why I was rather dissatisfied with the Minister's quotations of what he was doing now, and what the Government were doing through this Ministry and

through that, to limit and control the movements of industry. These are obviously purely war-time measures, things which the Government do, and do freely, under the stress of war, but it is quite open to belief that as soon as the stress is over they will abandon that policy altogether and go back to a position of complete laisser faire, I believe that once war conditions are removed, it is probable that pre-war conditions and tendencies will try at any rate to reassert themselves. We have at the moment a strong centrifugal tendency for people to get away from the dangerous, crowded area of the Metropolis. The Minister is right about that, but once the cause of that has gone, is there not every reason to suppose that the centrifugal tendency bringing them back again will resume its sway?
I have in mind warning this House of the danger of assuming that war-time facts are a safe foundation upon which to build the position of my town of Middlesbrough. If you judged us purely by the present figures of employment, it might be said, "You do not need any special measures to set up new industries in your area, because, with the demand for iron and steel products during the war, your unemployment has already been brought down and you are not doing too badly?" It is a very dangerous line of argument. There is every prospect that when the nightmare of war has passed from areas like mine, it will be followed by the nightmare of a slump. When the present black-out of lights has gone, it may be followed by another black-out of furnaces. I do not think that any firm plan can be built upon the figures of the location of employment at the present time. I agree, therefore, with the Minister that there will have to be a great deal of consideration not only of this document but of many other documents and of other kinds of evidence when we come to make our arrangements after the war. All that I am issuing a warning about now is the importance of distinguishing between these measures taken primarily for war purposes during the present crisis and those which are to be the permanent foundation of our method of dealing with this great subject.
On page 202 of the report there is a recommendation for the appropriate diversification of industry in each division or region, and I place a great deal of


importance upon that, because war-time builds up the great heavy industries, and then, when the war is over, the demand goes and these industries are put on short time and they turn away their employés, and too often there is no other kind of industry in that district to take over these workers. I find that particularly on Tees-side when the committee talks of diversification of industry in each division or region. One of the great difficulties—and I think that the Minister sees that—is to get your regions rightly defined. The region of which I am speaking—Tees-side—is very much a region on its own, and if you merely tack it on to Durham and to Tyneside, you will not get it dealt with properly. We have had the North Eastern Development Board, which has done very good work for the region in which it was instituted, and Tees-side is supposed to come in that region. I do not think that we have had very much benefit out of its activities. I am not blaming the North Eastern Development Board, but only saying that we have our own peculiar problems which will need a regional authority of our own to deal with. Middlesbrough cannot really be properly guided and directed from Newcastle-upon-Tyne. We, too, need the diversification of industry in spite of our present employment figures, and we have had very little of it. We have not had the advantages, such as they are, that can be got out of the Special Areas Acts. The Special Areas Acts have been a positive disadvantage to us because they have given to our neighbours of the North certain attractions which we do not enjoy, and therefore they make it harder for us to compete with them.
I hope that in any policy that the Government may adopt and in any plans that the National Industrial Board, if it is to be set up, may make, the special character and needs of this and all similar peculiarly constituted areas will be considered, and I hope that the whole matter is to be considered upon bold and constructive lines. It is quite right, of course, for the Minister to point out difficulties, but he always finds them to be acute difficulties. I believe that if he ever found an obtuse difficulty somewhere in the course of his review, he would make it acute before he had done with it. We have to realise the necessity for action. When I find the Minister talking in tones

almost of terror of the comparatively mild proposal even of the Majority, I am left with a very considerable sense of disquiet and dissatisfaction.

8.19 p.m.

Mr. Brooke: It is now six months since I last ventured to address the House, and so I hope that I shall not be occupying more than my quota of the time of the House in war if I try this evening to put forward a few ideas upon this subject. It is my conviction—and nothing that the Minister himself has said has altered that conviction—that of all economic questions not directly bearing on the conduct of the war this is the most important that this House can be called upon to consider. I am delighted, therefore, that this evening we have this opportunity. The hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) almost suggested, I think, that his own side of the House had a monopoly of interest in this matter, but I think he will concede to me that my personal interest in the location of industry problem goes back far beyond the original establishment of this Commission. Perhaps it is curious that a London Member should be making reference to the scarred ground of the Special Areas. That seems to me one aspect of our problem. The other aspect, closely linked with it, is one which my constituents and I see every day when we are travelling by train in or out of London during the rush hours. I do not know whether any other Members, in a crowded London train, have ever suddenly stopped to think whether this great civilisation of ours ought to be content with millions of people standing for hours each day while travelling to and fro, with cheerful or, perhaps, not quite so cheerful acquiescence in their travelling conditions, at very great social cost and, I think, an indirectly great financial cost to the nation.
I speak as a Member in whose London constituency there is no great industry, or space for any great industry, but I am quite clear that I should not be saying anything unpopular if, at a meeting of my constituents, I were to argue in favour of some restriction on the continued establishment of new industries on the fringes of London, thereby more and more over-crowding the limited number of railway lines which have to carry the people. That is my own starting point for intervening in this Debate.

Sir F. Fremantle: Surely that would in itself diminish the number of passengers able to travel?

Mr. Brooke: If my hon. Friend will read the report, I think he will see that although his suggestion might be, theoretically, what should happen, it does not happen.

Mr. Lawson: The evidence showed that.

Mr. Brooke: I cannot help going back to the fact that as a small boy I was able to play in fields no more than six miles from this House. I am not so old now, but my own small boys have to go at least six miles further out of London to find similar fields. The Royal Commission has found and, I think, rightly, that unless the argument of London's vulnerability exercises a far greater influence on industrialists after this war than it did before, we shall have to look forward to the continued growth of London. The only step which we can take to prevent that, if it is undesirable, is for this House to resolve that some sort of definite action shall be taken on the proposals of the Royal Commission. The Commission is unanimous—and listening to the Minister's speech I think he made it clear that the Government accepted in principle that unanimous conclusion—that something must be done. Once that is accepted in principle, then the outstanding importance and difficulty of the problem both lead me to hope that we shall not be like the men of Corinth, whom St. Paul criticised 1,900 years ago, and dissipate our energies on secondary controversies. We have our task, and we must make sure that whatever the differences between us as to the ideal means of fulfilling it, none of these differences must be allowed to prevent progress towards the end in view. I submit to the House that we shall not go far wrong if we bear in mind, as guides to our action, four essential points.
The first is one which I think presses most sharply on the mind of the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street—the phenomenon of severe local unemployment and the knowledge we must all have that parts of this country are liable to a return of that severe local unemployment unless we are able to secure a sufficient diversity of industry within those areas before the economic blow falls upon them. The second essential point is that the

growth of large towns will proceed further unless it is stopped. Although the Minister referred to London only, I think I am right in saying that if the figures are examined, the drift towards large towns is visible, not only in the prosperous and expanding parts of the country, but even in those that have been most depressed. Therefore, it is not simply a matter of keeping a balance between one region of the country and another; it is also a problem of keeping a balance within a region. For instance, it may well be that we made a mistake, although an honest mistake in a good cause, in establishing such large institutions as the Team Valley Trading Estate or the Hillington Estate, outside Glasgow, in close juxtaposition to big centres of population. It might have been desirable, had we known it, to develop a number of small and more scattered estates, although I make no criticism of the framers of the original policy, because the great thing was that we went forward with trading estates when we did.
The third consideration is the necessity for the business man to remember, and to be reminded if he does not remember on his own, that competent policemen and efficient traffic lights actually facilitate the flow of traffic and do not obstruct it. The last of my four points would be this; that the country at large must remember, and must similarly be reminded if it does not remember, that we cannot play fast and loose with industry and industrial establishments. We are a country which lives by industry—which lives by export trade—and should we take ill-advised action, such as would impede our ability to compete in the markets of the world, we shall pay dearly for the mistake. The conclusion to which these four points directs my mind is that we must proceed on a basis of full understanding in this matter, not slap-dash, but, above all, that we must proceed. It is not requisite, in my view, for the Government now to announce exactly what final structure or what final programme they have in mind which will be well adapted to the calm times of peace to which we hope we shall one day return. It seems to me that my right hon. Friend is quite justified in refusing to do that, but I would like to urge upon him and upon the Government generally that it is necessary now to take


immediate steps to put in hand the kind of survey work which must be the basis for action.
The right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health said that we must examine carefully the results of all this war-time movement. I agree; and we must have people whose special duty it is to examine them. I am not sure yet that we have these people, but if the right hon. Gentleman can satisfy the House of that, well and good. I should like to know whether in fact the regional commissioners are able to concern themselves as much with the study of industrial development in their regions as has been tentatively suggested to-night. With regard to this need for survey, I think we should note the very remarkable progress which was made in each of the Special Areas, the moment there was in the area concerned a local representative of the central Government specially charged with the duty of assisting their industrial development. It is a strange thing about this industrial country that that has never happened before. There was normally no local organisation of the Board of Trade. There was and is an excellent local organisation of the Ministry of Labour. We have the divisional controllers, and I understand it is the duty of the divisional controllers under the Ministry of Labour to keep an eye on current labour problems and unemployment questions. It has been nobody's official duty locally, hitherto, to take a dynamic view of industrial development, its potentialities and its consequences, but it is only on a real intimate knowledge of that, and a real intimate local knowledge, that Government policy can wisely be based. I think the House will agree that had we had machinery to secure this intimate understanding 20 years ago, the tragedy of the Special Areas would have been, not prevented, but greatly mitigated.
Therefore, I would like to submit that we should have some Commission, some kind of Board, whatever you may call it, quickly, which can put in hand the survey work which will be necessary. Do not let us be delayed by thoughts of legislative problems which will arise if we start by giving it executive power. Executive powers are not in the first period going to be required. Executive powers, which may be needed, as I think

the majority report quite correctly points out, can only be defined when further study has been made. If we can have some kind of Board or Commission and give it the means of perfecting a survey, a co-ordinated regional survey, the House may think fit to put it under the control not of any Departmental Minister but of the Lord President of the Council or the Lord Privy Seal—I mention the Lord President of the Council because he is particularly concerned with the responsibility for research. That would make it clear that in the first instance such a Commission had research duties and advisory powers. If I may say so, I am certain that so long as the present President of the Board of Trade holds office he is not likely to lose sight of the industrial importance of the work which would fall to be done.
The Minority report, it seems to me, would lead us straight towards the danger of another Ministry of Information disaster. The House will not misunderstand me when I speak of the Ministry of Information disaster. That Ministry is now running on very different lines from those which we used to discuss here six or seven months ago. I have always held the view that the Ministry of Information's troubles at the outbreak of the war derived from the mistake of giving it too extensive immediate duties and suddenly expecting it to do everything; I am afraid that the Minority report would lead us towards the same kind of failure. In my view no men, not even super-men, can in a few days or weeks qualify themselves to undertake in their own persons the vast responsibilities that the minority report would allocate to the new Department. You must not throw excessive responsibility on the body to do this work, until its personnel has had time to gain experience in the practical technique which will be required of it if its job is to be efficiently performed.
In other words, we have gained, through the Royal Commission and otherwise, a wealth of knowledge and understanding. Let us invest that knowledge, and not gamble with it speculatively. I know well enough that at this stage of the war it will be hard to find men qualified to undertake even the limited functions which I have sketched out. That is another reason for not starting too ambitiously. But I believe—to give


one example—we are not yet using to the full the potential capacities of men with University experience who at the same time possess the confidence of the business men with whom they constantly come into contact in their own regions. If we combed that field, and the field of industry itself, I am sure we could find at least some individuals who would be fully qualified for this kind of work. If we cannot find any such men, I submit that it is no use our using big words about being a great industrial nation. This is a supremely important task, and we must be able to throw up men greatly competent enough for it. Then, at a later stage, when we have gained more of the experience which the Minister mentioned, and when this Commission or Board has also gained the confidence of industry, the local authorities and the public, the Government will be able to draw, from its accumulated knowledge, the material for right action in this matter of influencing the location of industry.
In conclusion, may I try to give the House a vivid picture of the job which I want to see done? For scores of years past, every Minister who has had charge of one of the Defence Departments of this country has had to have present in his mind a map of our Imperial responsibilities, a map showing clearly the danger zones of the Empire. I doubt very much whether a Minister who has charge of internal economic affairs yet possesses any means of furnishing his mind with a similar economic map of this island, a map shaded, as it were, to show the lie of those undesirable features which threaten to create population problems or local unemployment problems on a scale that will become unmanageable unless action to guard against them is taken early. If, on the other hand, we can efficiently possess ourselves of such a survey and keep it constantly up to date, policy will emerge from it, just as diplomatic and military policy emerges constantly from our constant re-survey of the Imperial and international situation.

8.45 p.m.

Mr. Silkin: With a great deal of the speech of the hon. Member for West Lewisham (Mr. Brooke) I cordially agree, as I feel sure most hon. Members do. I am, however, a little doubtful about the survey to which he has referred. We have had a very exhaustive investigation of the problem and a very careful

statement of policy. I recognise, as the Minister stated, that the war has brought about changes and that a number of new factors will have to be considered, but if there were a further survey, it might well mean that by the time experience was gained from the survey, the damage would have been done.

Mr. Brooke: I would like to clear away any misconceptions which may have been caused by my failure sufficiently to explain myself. What I do not think yet exists is an organisation for regional survey, collated by a national authority.

Mr. Silkin: I supose there is still some little time in which to make further inquiries, but I feel that one can go too far even in the direction of making investigations. While investigations were taking place, the damage might be done, and the whole purpose of the investigations would be frustrated. We ought to guard against that. The hon. Member for West Lewisham was more kindly disposed towards the Government that I am. I feel that the Minister's speech was most disappointing and despondent. He agreed with neither the Majority report nor the Minority report, and he went so far as to say that he saw no way of getting over the difficulty. That is not a very helpful attitude for the Minister of Health to take up. On the other hand, he also said that he was getting over the difficulties during the war, partly by dispersal and partly by exercising control over new industries. I will not waste the time of the House by dealing with those two arguments. Everybody recognises that this particular problem is of a temporary nature and will not last even for the duration of the war, because people are coming back to London every day, and industries will come unless some real control is exercised over them. At the present time only a certain amount of control is exercised over war industry. In days to come that will not be the real problem. In one respect all hon. Members who have spoken have been in agreement. They have agreed that this is a vitally important question for the future of our country, both in connection with our war effort and, even more, as a post-war problem. We are quite rightly preparing ourselves for a long war. The struggle will be stern and it may be protracted. But are we preparing ourselves for the possibility of a


short war? The consequences of an unexpected and sudden cessation of hostilities may, from the point of view of the problem we are now discussing, be serious. Peace must not be allowed to take us unawares.
The Royal Commission have dealt with many problems in our social and economic life, but the central question with which they had to deal was the immense growth of large urban and industrial areas in various parts of the country. As hon. Members have pointed out, this growth is not confined to London. Hon. Members have dealt with Lancashire, the West Riding of Yorkshire, and four other areas. I want to deal particularly with the question of Greater London, with which I am most familiar. The unanimous finding of the Commission as regards Greater London is that the continued drift of the industrial population to London and the home counties constitutes a social, economic and strategical problem which demands immediate attention. I feel that that statement is true to-day, even though we are in the midst of a terrible war. I do not say that it is possible at this moment to suggest remedies, but the matter is one which ought to engage our attention. Almost every witness who gave evidence on this question took the same view. Sir Malcolm Stewart has been quoted. He has described the growth of Greater London as a national menace. One could hardly use stronger language.
May I remind the House of the main facts of the problem as regards Greater London? I believe they affect the lives of practically every one of the inhabitants of this area. The population of London and the home counties has grown since the beginning of the century by 3,500,000, and now numbers 12,000,000 persons—more than a quarter of the population of the country. That in itself must be an unhealthy thing, that more than a quarter of the population of a country should be congregated in a relatively small area. Of the increasing population in the last few years, no less than 35 per cent. has come to London and Greater London, and a large amount of the agricultural land in London and Greater London has been lost for all time. Even in the short period from 1925 onwards, 35,000 agricultural workers have left the land and

have gone into industry. The hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. K. Griffith) referred to land costs, and I agree that that is a very serious problem. Land costs have increased enormously in this area. In the end these increased costs must be paid for by industry itself, and it must impair our capacity and efficiency to compete with other countries. After all, your costs of land and your rent are nearly as important a factor as your wages bill, and high cost of land must reflect itself in prices and impair the efficiency of this country to compete with others.
The housing problem has also become acute. In the census of 1937 we find that no fewer than 70,000 families were living in the lowest standard of overcrowding laid down by the Housing Act, 1936. Taking a slightly higher standard, there are another 56,000 families living in over-crowded conditions. The hon. Member for West Lewisham referred to travelling. Workpeople have to travel very long distances under most tiring and uncomfortable conditions from their homes to their work. That adversely affects not only the workers physically, but also their efficiency. Moreover, one of the consequences of this has been that it has been necessary to build flats for workers at very great cost in the central part of London, instead of building, as we would desire, single family dwellings. There is also a great loss of time and inconvenience caused by traffic congestion, involving very extensive road widening schemes to accommodate the ever-increasing traffic. The Bressey Report, which has been referred to, recommends 56 schemes for road widening and improvement, costing something like £120,000,000. This is simply on account of the great problem we are discussing at the present time. In addition, the Minister of Transport has a large number of schemes for the rest of the country, involving a further expenditure of something like £100,000,000. Nearly all these schemes are necessitated by the growth of these large centres of industry.
Another very important factor is that there are to-day in London millions of people who never have an opportunity of seeing the countryside. The hon. Member for West Lewisham referred to the fact that he has now to go 12 miles before he gets into the country, but there are people in my constituency who have to go about


20 miles. There must be millions of people in London who can never get into the country, not only because of the distance, but because of the cost of travelling. It is very difficult for anyone, unless he has a car, to spend a day in the country. Apart from the war, this problem is one which is increasing in extent. The greater the aggregation of the population, the more attractive it becomes for industry. There is an infinite supply of labour, and industry is naturally drawn to large centres like a magnet. In recent years the large majority of new industries have been attracted to London and other large centres. I need not at this time dwell upon the strategic problems involved, the vulnerability of large centres, and the difficulty and expense of defending them in time of war. There is also the problem of administration in London and the home counties. There are over 100 separate local authorities administering services which in many cases overlap and are duplicated. Each authority is naturally concerned only with its own local problem and with the preservation of its integrity and independence. There is no single authority which can plan and administer the area as a whole, and this again makes for waste and inefficiency of administration.
Town planning, even if it was fully exercised, which in most cases it is not, would be quite inadequate for dealing with the problem. When peace comes the process I have described will be accentuated, as it was after the last war, unless something is done, and done now. It is useless for the Ministry of Health to talk as if this was a problem which could wait, and which would have to be thought about after the war. Unless we do something now, and begin to think about it now, and prepare and plan in such a way that the plans can be put into operation when the war is at any rate in sight of being over, it will be too late. All the factors which have induced industry to concentrate in this large conurbation will remain, creating more and more depressed and desolate areas.
It is not my purpose to discuss the proposals and recommendations of the Royal Commission. There are, however, three things to which I should like to refer in passing. First, this is not a matter with which any single local authority, or even

a group of local authorities, can deal. I regard this as a national problem, and one which can be dealt with by a Government Department, preferably a separate one, which would co-ordinate the various aspects of the problem—industrial, social, agricultural, transport and so on. Secondly, whatever remedy is adopted, it must not be to the detriment of the existing large areas. It must not create distress or reduce prosperity. There was in the days of peace a tendency to regard London as a very prosperous area which in time of need might be drawn on. There is always a good case for reducing the grants to London. This problem cannot be solved by reducing the prosperity of London or of any other area. It can only be solved by increasing the prosperity of other areas. Thirdly, a great deal can be done in war-time by careful selection of sites for new munition and other works.
In spite of what the Minister of Health has said, I do not believe that the considerations which he mentioned and which are set out in the report of the Royal Commission have always been present in the mind of the Minister who has set up war-time factories. I need only instance Coventry and one case, which I do not want to mention in public but which I will gladly mention to the Minister in which these factors have always been taken into consideration. It is for the Government to put forward their proposals for solving the problem. Between the Majority and Minority reports there is a good deal of agreement. They are agreed as to the evil, and there is a good deal of agreement as to the manner of solving it. The differences are largely in machinery and in emphasis. I favour the Minority report, which is more definite comprehensive and far-reaching. Whichever proposals the Government adopt, if they will only be induced to realise the urgency and gravity of the problem and act at once and in anticipation, this Debate will have served a useful purpose.

9.13 p.m.

Sir Francis Fremantle (St. Albans): I would like to join with everyone who has spoken in recognising the great value of the report that we are discussing and in thanking the members of the Commission for the hard work under great difficulties which they have put into it. I do not


think as many others do that the report is waste paper now. I think, on the other hand, that it is a valuable summary of a large number of experiences and tendencies of associations of one kind or another which have been moving, largely independently, during the past 30 or 40 years. That summary will, in any case, last. I hope that if this report is put into a pigeon-hole, it will be taken out as soon as it is possible to make effective use of it and not be committed to absolute forgetfulness, as was the case with another report in which I was much interested, that of the Select Committee on Patent Medicines, at the beginning of the last war, which was only brought to light in the Budget of last year and, I hope, will again be brought to light next week. Although the report may be put into cold storage for a time, I hope that it will be used as a stepping stone.
I am certain we cannot afford to neglect these matters, which, as the hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) has said so well out of his rich experience, are pressing and increasing. They are like the Sibylline Books; with every extra decade and every extra year that passes by the difficulties increase. It is all very well for Ministers, Members and those concerned to say that the matter is too complex for us to deal with. The fact is that it will be more complex and difficult to deal with later on. I think the Minister of Health has a good deal of right on his side when he says that at the present moment, so pressing are the problems of the war, we cannot deal with the subject now subject to the fact, which I hope is true, that the Ministerial Departments are dealing with it bit by bit as the problem comes before them. Although it has been suggested that that is not the case, I believe that the factories which have been erected under the Ministry of Supply have been subject to the definite advice and report of the different Government Departments concerned on these particular points. Although many of us will say that the results have been disappointing, I am certain that the Government Departments, so far as I have been in touch with them, have been consulted on the points in connection with the factories that have been put up. It may be said that it makes it all the worse that we should have got such an unsatisfactory result, but I think the criticism has been

made a little prematurely and that, if we wait for things to develop, we shall find that there were reasons for the siting of these factories which will meet many of the problems that we have in our minds.
A good many of us remember the bitter experience of the last war, when these things were not in mind. I am told that the city of Barrow was a terrible instance of neglect of these considerations. I remember the appalling position of Cippenham, outside Slough, which was known as the Slough Trading Estate, which was established by the Government purely and simply as a trading estate with no consideration for the people. Special trains had to go down from London with the workers until something like six years after the war, and they were crowded in the little rural houses around. No idea suggested itself to the Government that there was need to look after the interests of the workers on that estate. A good many remedial measures have been taken since, and Cippenham is not so destitute of amenities as it was, but it is a melancholy instance of bad laying-out because of the neglect of proper plans from the first. We are faced with a problem which we all recognise, and it has been understood by the great mass of the people a great deal more as the result of this war. We have only to take the experience of the evacuees. Living as I do 20 miles out of London, I can see actual evidence of it. The compulsory evacuation of the people has had in many ways remarkably good results. I look at it with great interest from the point of the view of the health of the children who were evacuated, and the improvement has been something astonishing. The bad side is, of course, that they are separated from their families, and that is a serious question. The improvement in their health has been remarkable, and the fact that there has been no infectious disease during the war is also remarkable. These children have gone into the countryside, and instead of bringing infectious disease with them, as we expected, they have been clearer than usual and our own children have been clearer too.
We have surely in this case what we seldom have in any of the ideas of reorganisation and reform; we have a living example in front of us of the goal towards which we are moving, which has been


achieved in the face of all the diffidence and ignorance of the country. We have it in the two garden cities which include the whole of the different ideas that have been advanced in the Royal Commission's report. Most people make up their minds on headlines and, unfortunately, owing to the name, many people think of them as cities of gardens. As a matter of fact, as many Members of Parliament know, the essential idea of the garden city movement was that it should provide a complete unit for all purposes of a community, that industry should be located there just as there would be provision for housing the people with all the amenities which they would require. The scheme embraced the provision of shopping facilities and also adequate transport arrangements. All the needs were enshrined in one plan, which had been worked out slowly by the sweat of the brows of those of us who were concerned with it. It was done by private enterprise with the help of large loans. If I may be excused for saying it, I was instrumental in introducing a Section into the Housing Act of 1921 which enables garden cities to raise loans from public money. Those who put their money into the original garden cities, the one at Letch worth in 1902 and the other at Welwyn in 1920, have had a rough time, although dividends are paid after about 20 years.
One of the many lessons learned from that great experiment—great although it was on a small scale—is that any large-scale reorganisation of this kind cannot be carried out by private enterprise alone, but that it is necessary to get public funds for it. In return there must be a good deal of public control, and obviously the difficulty is to get an organisation in which voluntary enterprise has that liberty of action which is essential to the proper development of such great schemes as we are now considering and at the same time to have that measure of public control which introduces the large and comprehensive view. We shall be in a much better position to get a comprehensive line to follow towards the end of the war or afterwards. During this war we have seen already a great reorganisation of Government services, not least those of the Ministry of Health. They were started just before the war, and they have been immensely supplemented for war pur-

poses. We have regionalisation taking effect; we have seen it in connection with the organisation of our hospitals throughout the country—the regionalisation of hospitals which has gone on with the assistance of the large and generous donation from Lord Nuffield. I think this regionalisation will provide one line towards which we must work, although we are not in a position to be able to work on it now.
On the outer ring of London we have had experiences which particularly strike one who, like myself, has been a county medical officer of health for 16 years and has also been the chairman of the housing committee of the London County Council, a position which the hon. Member for Peckham has filled for six years. I was in that position for two years after the war, and I was responsible for one of the bad schemes, the immense housing estate scheme at Dagenham. I persuaded the London County Council that it was essential to do things on a big scale, breaking away from the lines of pre-war schemes, a small undertaking here and another there. So we started the Dagenham scheme. The scheme which I put before my colleagues provided that we should take the whole of the land right down to the river and that the area which was not required for residential purposes should be used for industrial purposes. At that time opinion was not ripe for such a step, and that part of it was turned down on the view that we were entitled to deal only with the housing of the working classes. Since then Messrs. Ford and others have come along and made use of that land. They have brought the industry to the houses which we built.
The housing scheme was in itself purely a housing scheme and therefore no solution. In the same way, recent Government schemes of industrial development have been purely industrial. I was sorry to see that the Team Valley Estate scheme made no provision for the housing needs of the workers. It is true that there were large industrial populations living within a few miles of it, but the authorities did not draw up a scheme which combined industrial and housing development. As the hon. Member for Peckham has already said, not least among the points that hit all those of us who are trying to solve the problem of town and country is the fact that people are having to spend


more and more upon travelling to their work. There is not only the question of the fatigue and the time which it occupies—very often two hours out of every working day—but there is the point of the actual money spent. It has been estimated that in the area of the London Passenger Transport Board something like £15 a year per family is spent in travelling daily to work, which is practically 8 per cent. of the average income of working-class families. It is also estimated that no fewer than 1,750,000 people travel into London every day to their work. It involves immense expenditure, waste of time and loss of efficiency.
Then there comes the question of why it is that our big towns still continue to grow. The hon. Member for Peckham was dealing with the question as though it were a problem confined to London, and those of us who live in or around London may be inclined to think that the whole problem is here; but there is the same problem around Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Sheffield. People are flocking to the towns. And this development is not limited to Great Britain. The same thing is happening in Australia, where people are flocking to the towns from the countryside. Something like one-tenth of the whole population of Australia is in Sydney alone. It is a worldwide problem. It is a question which is bound up with the standards or objectives of people in life. One of their objectives has been to gain the amenities and the company and society which town life affords, not only for the wife but for the man, who finds there his clubs and his pubs, his associations and his societies. The town provides a much larger range of resources for any purposes, good or bad.
What has been the result? You have this constant increase in the value of town sites. Is not that one of nature's remedies for the situation? Is it not natural that, as with so many other evils, as the tendency which we recognise as bad is increasing, so the cost of it is increasing? The cost of road improvements, for instance, is measured by millions of pounds, and the cost to industries and residents is enormously increased compared with going out into the country. May not that lead people more and more to open their mind to the joys

of more rural life, not the ordinary country life which many of us enjoy so much, but closer connection with nature and with country life which is being seen in the minds of the little evacuees at present? How their eyes open when they come to the country, not having realised what a haystack is, and regard a man going about as a labourer as if he had come out of a fairy book. In some ways perhaps the result of this war may be to bring people more to think it is a good thing to get out into the country and be prepared for it, but, if so, you must get industry out too. You must prevent this business of travelling backwards and forwards.
Obvious and trite remarks are constantly being made, quite rightly, as regards how necessary it is, when you are thinking of the charm of the countryside or properly laid-out garden cities, to consider other things like the supply of labour. It is true, as was said by the hon. Gentleman who opened the Debate, that when an industry proposed to go down into Hertfordshire the county council did not want it because they said there was no labour to be had there. One of the first things that we learned was to consider where the labour is to come from. If you take an industry out, there are no workers. If you take out the workers, there is no industry for them, and they have to travel backwards and forwards. You want so much money sunk to get the two together. I have a great deal of sympathy with the idea that these public factories should be established in places in Wales and up in the North where you have an unemployed industrial population already settled. That is infinitely better than bringing them down South and establishing them in new areas. At the same time you have to do a good deal of clearing up in order to make it a working proposition. I remember asking the then President of the Board of Trade, now Lord Swinton, about eight or 10 years ago whether we could not take the matter up, because it seemed to me so essential and so much to the advantage of industry to get this movement going. I think it must have been in the heat of working through the financial crisis of 1931. He said, "We cannot take up anything of that sort. Do not press it at present. We are too busy for trade to be interfered with."
I think the need of establishing such a combination, of moving out industry and so on, is very great, and the cost will be very great, yet it is impossible to municipalise and nationalise industry, and, on the other hand, it would be impossible to subsidise ordinary private enterprise. But I think it would be possible to overcome the real difficulty of industry in moving out if a Government subsidy were available for the cost of removal, quite apart from the real advantage or disadvantage to industry. I think there is a precedent for it in the Government subsidy for housing. If you can subsidise housing, I believe you can subsidise the removal of industry to go with housing. The subsidy should be conditional on the industry going to a site which it might choose itself, with advice, of course, which would be approved. Under those conditions you would have a great incentive to industry to overcome the natural hesitation to undertake such a very risky operation. Whether this should be done by municipalities or corporations is a very difficult problem which we cannot deal with at present. I had always hoped that the right hon. Gentleman on the Front Opposition Bench, with his colleagues on the London County Council, when they got into power would use their power to establish large new organisations such as we suggest. They have not done so. It is very difficult to do so for many reasons, but I still hope that some arrangements may be made by which there may be allowed the power of not merely taking an extra suburb but of colonising a small town in another area or administrative county, which is not a new idea. We have the whole of the geography of England spotted with little oases of districts separated from others, and I believe it would be quite possible, under definite conditions, to develop this kind of scheme. We are at the beginning of a new era. When it opens, I hope we shall be able to advance on the lines so well prepared for us by this report.

9.29 p.m.

Mr. Woodburn: I think the Debate has become a little clouded by the fog of London. I should like to take it out of London and deal with the problem that lies in Scotland and elsewhere. If London is suffering from an aggregation of population, Scotland is suffering from a general decline in its population. In the North

of Scotland, especially, there is a great trek towards the town and out of the countryside. The problem is much bigger than any question of putting a factory here or there. It is a conflict between two very great principles. The issue is, whether economic interest or social interest is to determine what is to happen to the country. Those two principles frequently come into conflict. If a man wishes to establish a business, he thinks solely of the element of profit and if it suits him, he goes to Glasgow or to London. He does not take into account the social cost or consequence of his move. This House is faced in the report with the problem of whether the country is to grow up like Topsy, or whether there is to be some intelligent order in the realm of industrial planning.
The Minister of Health referred to the fact that the Commission was set up in Edinburgh. It seems appropriate that a Commission dealing with planning should come from that city because 100 years ago the city was an example to the country and to the world in town planning. Even to this day visitors to Edinburgh find the dignity and glory of the work of the brothers Adams an example for all time. Edinburgh played another great part in town planning because from there the message went out from Sir Patrick Geddes, a world pioneer of town planning, to every part of the Empire. To-day credit is given to him because of his mission on behalf of town planning. Where town planning did not exist, cemeteries, glue works, art galleries, and houses were side by side. The time came when the town authorities had to decide whether to go on in that haphazard way or to have some kind of development. To-day there is hardly a town that has not adopted some scheme of town planning—which does not mean something fixed which orders you to go here or there, but something which attempts to lay out a town and give a general trend to development.
Surely, the Government ought to have in their minds some trend of development. Space is being annihilated by wireless and the aeroplane. Some little time ago an aeroplane travelled from Edinburgh to London, 400 miles, in about 45 minutes. It takes 45 minutes to travel half way across Edinburgh and nobody can travel across London in that time.


Modern inventions have made this country one unit, which requires to be planned with some kind of vision. As a result of the exigencies of the war situation, much investigation is going on, and the Government have in their possession to-day a complete list of the sites available in this country. The question that the Government must answer is whether all this investigation is to go by the board immediately the war is finished, or whether such planning as exists is to be utilised in giving direction to new industries that will grow up. Nobody suggests that it will be easy to transplant industries from where they are now to some new spot, but to-day and every day some new invention or new development arises, and no dislocation is caused if new processes are given planned directions as to location. In the case of the development of the wireless industry, was there any difficulty in saying, "You can go here or you can go there, with great benefit to the community"? Some industries have set themselves up in places where there are no civic amenities. A town of about 30,000 people, with its buildings and equipment, has cost about £10,000,000 to construct. Some of the bigger towns have a capital value of nearly £100,000,000. Is it to be at the whim of a manufacturer to leave the amenities that society has provided and to go into some backward area or some out of the way place and involve the community in the building of new houses and facilities? I suggest that we should start with the realisation that the whole country is now to the Government what the town is to the municipality.
London, of course, for many years has been, so to speak, the office of the country. The cost of the Civil Service is not provided by the industries of London alone, but also by the industries of the rest of the country. Yet if it comes to the question of building a bridge over the Thames London can provide an economic justification for its construction, whereas if in Scotland we ask the Government to build a bridge across the Forth we are told there is not sufficient economic justification. Therefore, we return to this conflict between economic justification and social justification. We contend that it is a mere accident that London is the "office," with its great population to

provide an economic justification for bridges and other amenities. We maintain that if we are to have a country planned, designed and developed properly, social justification must be taken into account, and if it is necessary for social reasons, bridges must be built at Bristol, or over the Forth, or the Tay, as the case may be.
If I may take this point to its geographical limit, let us decide that we intend to maintain a population in the Highlands of Scotland. To a very large extent Scotland has become a millionaires' holiday resort, which shows at least that it is a desirable place to live in, because, obviously, millionaires would not go to an undesirable place. If millionaires find it pleasant to live in the Highlands of Scotland, I suggest it is desirable that the indigenous population should be allowed to continue living there. Since a great deal of our food comes from the North, we shall always have to maintain a population in some of the outlying districts. Economically you could justify denuding much of the countryside of its population and bringing its people to the industrial areas, but is it desirable from the social point of view? If people are to live, say, in Kyle of Lochalsh or somewhere such as Sutherland—which is represented by the leader of the Liberal party—it seems clear that social amenities ought to be provided for the inhabitants. You must also provide them with industries upon which to live. Fishing is a big industry and is neglected, as far as planning is concerned. Fishing cannot exist in these parts without some extra population or without some supplementary industries and if it is desirable that these parts of the country should be populated, there should be some planning to send industry there as well.
I come back to the general question; I think that in this Debate it is necessary to keep to principles, and to leave the details to be worked out afterwards. The question facing the Government is whether there is to be planning or not. The first part of the Minister's speech seemed to suggest that there should be no planning; that planning was quite impossible. The second part went to show how wonderfully the Government were planning. I am ready to believe that there is a great deal of planning at the moment; but we do not want to stop that and go back to


confusion when the war ends. We have a unique opportunity to-day. The population is in almost a fluid state; millions of men are being taken into the Army, millions of people are being taken from their homes and are moving from industry to industry. Where are those people to settle down again after the war? Are they to flow back into the old ruts, or will the Government use the skilled farmers' idea of planned irrigation, and develop industry by intelligent planning?
Sir Patrick Geddes taught the great lesson that it is not necessary to have a town growing up like Topsy. Just as you design a building and make it a thing of beauty, so you can design a town and make it a thing of beauty. Then you see it growing in a way that delights the eye, and it is a pleasure to live in it. We are the architects of our nation, and can make our country a thing of beauty and a place worth living in. It is no good having a Minister who sees only difficulties, and cannot get over them. Difficulties are there to be got over. We want people with vision, who are going to the mountain-top to see what can be made of our land, and who will then go forward to a realisation of its great possibilities.

9.43 p.m.

Mr. Price: Nearly every hon. Member who has spoken has been disappointed with the speech of the Minister of Health. A large part of that speech was devoted to putting up ninepins and knocking them down. Everyone knows that a problem of this kind is of great complexity and difficulty. We expected from the Minister some vision, and some hope that, at least, a portion of this most valuable report would be put into operation by the Government. I do not ask him to consider only the minority report. If he considers the majority report, or even some portion of it, to be the only thing practicable under present conditions, let him give us hope that it will be put into effect. Up to now industry has moved about, and settled in one area or another, according largely to the profits which the employers think they might be able to get. But in war-time, surely, the national interests should be paramount.
We must look even beyond that, and see that in peace-time too, the national interest shall become paramount; and it is clear that the movement of industry

in an uncontrolled way is definitely against the national interest. Probably in the nineteenth century the concentration of industry in big centres had certain definite advantages, but it is clear that that concentration has now reached a point at which it becomes socially undesirable. Other hon. Members have referred to the disadvantages: the enormous rise in land values for one thing. I understand that on the Great West Road, for industrial sites, which are untaxed and unrated, £6,000 an acre is being asked on prospective values, merely because they happen to be in the vicinity of new factories. That is the kind of thing that is going on, with an enormous increase in costs wherever industry is established.
There is also this social aspect—the increasing cost of transport for workers. A lot has been spoken upon that with regard to London, but my constituency is a very different type of constituency. It is an old industrial area, where there had been for a long time a surplus industrial population which could not get work in the mines and the old heavy industries. That population has been getting work in the new industrial areas outside. At great cost to themselves, hundreds of workers are going out, undertaking 30- and 40-mile journeys per day, to the detriment of their health, entailing great waste of time, and very often, if they are builders, on wet days, losing their work and having to pay their transport costs as well. All that kind of thing has been going on, not to mention the strategical difficulties which have been referred to by other speakers. We must not regard this as a matter which is going to solve itself as a result of war. The report of the Royal Commission, on page 50, warns us about this very point. It says:
We find no reason for supposing that the trend (of industry) to the South-East will be permanently checked after the Government's rearmament policy….
Such a trend is not, however, in our view, inevitable, and the question then arises whether it is desirable. If it is not desirable the further question arises as to how far it can be checked.
It is surely clear that we cannot leave future developments to private enterprise. Planning by garden cities has done a small bit undoubtedly, and I also pay a tribute to those local authorities who have been attempting, successfully in many


cases, to put into operation the Town and Country Planning Act. The county council of Gloucestershire has been foremost in this respect. It has put this Act into operation, and has now definite plans for the industrial settlement of the county. As a result of their activities, and, I would also say, of certain Government Departments, who have given assistance in this respect—I will give them credit for that—we are getting two new industries in an area where there has been a surplus industrial population. All that is in the right direction, but it is only a beginning. It must be planned on a much larger scale if we are to have the necessary results. Public interest must, all along, take precedence over private economic interests. Therefore, I hope that a body like that recommended in the report—a national industrial board—will be set up even in war-time.
My last word is that it is no use to try to attract new industries into the areas which are thought desirable unless you also place disabilities in the way of, and make difficulties for, industries which go into areas where they are not wanted. That is why I think the report is so valuable because, for the first time, we have a responsible body of people recommending this National Industrial Board, which it is proposed to set up, definitely to licence or control industries in the London and home counties. It is recommended that these industries shall be asked to state their reasons why they feel that they must come into this area, and that the Board shall be given the power to say "No," in the event of their being unable to prove their case. It is just that kind of step which ought to be taken with the least possible delay.

9.50 p.m.

Mr. A. Edwards: An hon. Member opposite said to-night that big problems throw up big men. That should be true. Here is a big problem, and any statesman who got up at that Box with this report could have made a reputation of which he could have been proud. Instead of doing that, the Minister spoke as though likening the whole Debate to a private Member's Motion and as though he was having a little debating exercise. He suggested that the Government had gone right ahead of the report and of all the work which

these men, to whom he gave great praise, had done. Almost flippantly, he said the Government had gone right ahead of it. If he had said the Government had jumped over it, that might have been true. He said the Government were already planning and controlling. As a matter of fact, any honest man having anything to do with a Department knows perfectly well that all the Government have done is to give over the control of the Government to industry. That is not planning. I shall have time to deal with only one or two specific instances. There should be some authority to think out all these things and study the economic consequences and effects which one industry in one part of the country has on another. I know of an industry, put in one part of the country three years ago, which said it was justified in an investment of £3,000,000 though it actually spent nearer £4,000,000. There was nobody in this country to consider the fact that they put the community to the expense of £6,000,000 or £7,000,000. From the point of view of the community, it was a hopeless economic proposition. These people got £6,000,000 out of the community so that they could invest £3,000,000 and make it appear an economic proposition.
Why does not the Minister make a sensible statement about all this silly talk about being near big markets in London? Some time ago I pointed out, in a previous Debate, that it was possible to bring the Tyne, Tees, and Wear within five hours of London by spending £32,000,000 on a suitable road. The vehicles we have available to-day could make the journey to London in the time. One of my hon. Friends behind me spoke of one county council spending £6,000,000 on road widening and putting £15,000,000 into the pockets of private interests. Had the Government taken the job in hand, they would have not only done it for nothing but have made a considerable profit. But no Government Department—and I challenge the Minister, who has made such a flippant speech on this subject to-night, to contradict me—gave serious consideration to that. Another point that I want to make is that it is necessary to have some economic body to consider the effect of putting down an industry here or there.
There is no more important problem facing the Government to-day than the


production of aluminium. Aluminium has to be made from bauxite, which comes, very largely, from Jugoslavia, some from the South of France and some from a British Colony. Jugoslavia is the main source of bauxite, and who will dare say that we can rely on that country for considerable quantities? We are told we have stocks, and of course we have stocks, but I happen to know the estimated requirements of aluminium according to our programme, and I know what the requirements will be nine months hence. The Government dare not say that we have yet provided for the necessary quantities. There happens to be valuable aluminium content in shale mountains in South Wales, and there is a process whereby it can be converted into aluminium.
Probably there are some vested interests which do not agree with this development. It happens that there are two big combines, and one of these combines is in control of the Government and of the Ministry of Supply at this moment on this matter. One of their experts says, "We do not approve of it," and rather suggests, though they dare not say so, that it will not work. But it will work. I have taken the trouble to have an outside opinion upon it, and I ask the Government as well to get an outside opinion. There is only a limited amount of electrical energy available in this country, but alongside these pitheaps in South Wales and other parts of the country there is enough electrical energy to put into operation the processes of producing aluminium. It happens to be required for another job, but that job can be done in another place, and if the Government do not know, I shall be glad to tell them where they can get the electrical energy. It would not surprise meat all if the Government do not know, considering what little co-ordination there is between Government Departments.
The right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health talked about the co-ordination of the various Departments. I say that if he had been honest enough, he would have told us of the fights there have been going on between them. I challenge him to say whether there has been any co-ordination and co-operation. There has been fighting between the Departments, and that ought not to be. There should

be an authority to settle these questions. The right hon. Gentleman said that there is the Cabinet to decide these questions—about which they know nothing. It is perfectly ridiculous for a Minister of the Crown to get up and in a serious war to talk flippantly and to go right over the heads of these gentlemen who have given their services quite willingly. It is indecent. I shall hope to have further discussions with the Minister of Supply on this matter. I beg the Government to say that they will not be governed by these combines but will decide to get someone outside to decide. The point I want to make is the fact that there is no authority to whom these people can go in a dilemma and ask what they can do. There is an argument between different Government Departments, and then the matter goes to the Cabinet. When the Cabinet decides, it must necessarily be just a guess. I think it is absurd that the right hon. Gentleman should talk seriously about planning. He has no right to discuss a serious report like this in the manner he did, and say that they will not appoint this Committee. I think it is indecent and discourteous to this House.

9.59 p.m.

Mr. Herbert Morrison: The House is indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) for introducing this subject, and also to my hon. Friend the Member for East Middlesbrough (Mr. A. Edwards) for having brought us back to the economic realities of this matter in relation to the report of the Royal Commission. The hon. Member always speaks with great thought and consideration on matters of trade and industry, on which he is very well informed. The hon. Member for Chester-le-Street dealt with the report of the Commission and summarised a considerable number of its recommendations and conclusions. I join with him in expressing our thanks, and I am sure the thanks of the whole House, to the members of the Royal Commission for the great pains they took in investigating this important subject and the considerable labour they put into hearing and considering the evidence and making this report. They were dealing with a subject of very great difficulty and complexity. The subject is difficult and complex largely because of the ramifica-


tions of the capitalist world in which we live. If the country owned its land, industry and capital, it would be a matter of organising them and putting them where they could be best used. The complications and difficulties arise out of the action of public authority in controlling and trying to direct the owners of private undertakings who—it is not their fault, but is in the nature of the system—are concerned with their own personal interests or the interests of their undertaking and with making a profit. Life would be much simpler if we had been sensible enough to be a Socialist country. The difficulties and complexities arise out of the inevitable conflict between private interests and the interests of the community as a whole.
Frequent reference has been made, both in the report of the Royal Commission and in this Debate, to the problem of Greater London. I have a sort of feeling that Members representing London constituencies have to sing low in this Debate, to be careful and mind their step, or they may be set upon from all parts of the country. If I am asked whether Greater London ought to exist, my answer is, quite frankly, "No." I am not proud of Greater London. I am proud of London, the London spirit and tradition, but I am not proud to hear we have got together a population which now, in its widest interpretation, gets near to 10,000,000, that transport London has a square mileage of about 2,000, with a problem of getting from the centre to the countryside that is one of real physical difficulty to a large proportion of the citizens of this community, with long straggling roads going out like the Great West Road, with its industrial development. This passion for size and sprawl and spread is one that I do not admire. If we were starting our country anew, I am sure every one of us would say that anything in the nature of this vast, sprawling, chaotic spread of Greater London must not happen. It is unhealthy for London, it is unhealthy for the rest of the country, and it produces a bad balance.
Moreover, there is a vicious circle about it. The Minister has spoken about the motive of industry in coming to London as being the ready-made large market; but then, when a new industry has settled down the market is made still larger, and

so things go on in a vicious circle of production chasing the market and the market chasing production. That may be an explanation of what happens, but it is nothing to glory about or be pleased about. Something ought to be done at any rate to limit a further chaotic spread of this vast Metropolis, which is really indefensible on grounds of town planning. It is economically wrong, and it presents the country with a considerable problem from the point of view of military and civil defence at this moment. Probably the area of the administrative county of London would be about right. But there is the remainder, sprawled about. It has happened, and, of course, everybody will agree that it cannot easily be rectified. One cannot pick up these factories of the Great West Road, take them somewhere else, and deposit them there. One cannot undo in five minutes what has happened as the result of chaotic and uncontrolled development. Nor would it be wise to make this merely a matter of the physical transfer of existing industries from one part of the country to another, because you might be simply transferring depression from one part of the country to another. It is vitally important for the Government, and especially for the Board of Trade, to think constructively about this matter. It is not only a matter of thinking that an industry which is here, could go there, and one which is there, could come here. In fact, that is not immediately practicable, but the Government, or an authority under the Government, ought to have a voice in saying where new industries are to develop, and where, in some respects, extensions to existing industries are to develop. It is reasonable and proper that the community should have a voice, and an adequate voice, in deciding where new industrial development is to take place.
When we had protective tariffs brought in, with the result that a number of foreign concerns with foreign capital established industries in this country—there were not a terrible lot of them, but there were some—surely we had the right to say then, "If that foreign capital is coming into this country as a result of our protective policy, and new industries and factories are to be established, you are going here, where it is beneficial that you should go." The foreign investor came here, not because he wanted to, but because he wanted to get behind the tariff


wall, and surely it was reasonable to say that the British manufacturer had benefited from the protection the Government had erected. I use the word "benefited" because I do not want to be controversial and incite the Parliamentary Secretary to a Debate on Protection versus Free Trade, otherwise he would have of course to support the Protectionist point of view. I do not want the hon. and gallant Gentleman to be provoked into being controversial, nor do I wish to embarrass him, either in a political or family sense. The tariff having come, British industry was able to extend and new industries were able to develop. Surely it was reasonable, within proper limitations, for the Government to say to the manufacturers, "We think, on grounds of national, social and economic importance, that your industry should go here or there."
I do not say that the Government should say the precise town to which an industry should go, but they might say it should go to the North-East Coast, South Wales, Lancashire or the West of Scotland. They could say, "That is where you ought to go, unless you can prove to us in the nature of your business and the success of the industry, that you cannot go there, otherwise we must make you go." I think it is reasonable that they should be heard, and if they could make out a case, it would not be unreasonable to take notice of it. It is up to them, however, to prove their case, because we ought not to permit large areas of the country with a fine working class, trained and with a fine character, to go to pieces merely because undertakings have ideas of their own, which may be right or wrong, but which may be merely fanciful and may do great injury to the country as a whole. Therefore, there ought to be some restriction on the further movement of industry to London, provided proper account is taken of the interests of the employment of people who are, rightly or wrongly, living in Greater London, and provided at all times that we do not manufacture a new problem in the Greater London area instead of somewhere else.
It is true that the local authorities in Greater London now are doing something to limit the growth, but it is only something. We have launched from the London County Council the Green Belt

scheme, and I hope that, in spite of the war, that scheme will go on. As far as the London County Council is concerned, it can, and I hope that the local authorities will continue the admirable co-operation they have started and that the Minister of Health will be practical in helping that to be done. It would be a tragic affair if, as the result of the war and the extension of London into the outer belt, that Green Belt scheme were spoilt, because once it is spoilt it will be spoilt for ever. There were two agencies which have been really effective in trying to do something about it. One was Queen Elizabeth hundreds of years ago and the other was the Labour majority of the London County Council of 1934. The trouble about Queen Elizabeth's effort was that while she got legislation passed, the Conservative anarchists of that time defied authority, and it never came off. It is a great pity that I did not live in the days of Queen Elizabeth, because she and I together would have done something about it.
The right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health made a speech which, I am bound to say, depressed me the more I heard it. He spent two-thirds of his speech on proving what the Cockney used to say—"What's the good of any fink? Why, nuffink"—that it was an insoluble business, that we had better forget it and try not to do impossible things. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for East Middlesbrough that that is not the spirit in which a Minister should go about his work. I know that there are complications about it, but they are the result of the capitalist system. The Ministry of Health is the town-planning Department. If the Minister is trying to persuade the House that before he approves a town-planning scheme he consults the Board of Trade on the economic aspects, the Ministry of Transport on the highway aspects, and the Ministry of Agriculture on the agricultural aspects, he is trying to persuade the House about something he does not do. Of course, he does not do that.
In fact, town planning is not dealt with by the Ministry of Health on the basis of taking all the factors into account. What are all the factors? The factors of town planning are not merely the number of houses that should be built to the acre. That is what we have been largely getting


to, owing to the narrow philosophy of the Ministry of Health. Town planning is a vital matter of the distribution of residential areas, the class of the residential areas, the distribution of industry, of highways, bridges, transport, electricity, water, etc. You cannot properly consider the distribution of industry merely within an urban or a rural district. It is an economic absurdity to think you can do anything of the kind. The distribution of industry must be considered, highway and bridge construction must be considered but no less must the amenities and the beauties of the countryside be considered. We are sometimes liable to think that town planning means merely the beautification of the town, but all our town-planning powers will not beautify a town in five minutes. It means not only the prevention of the desecration of the countryside, but that it is wrong to plant in the middle of beautiful country industrial smoke-producing factories that could as easily be somewhere else. But we go on doing it because the Ministry of Health is not functioning properly in town-planning matters.
Let me put my points of criticism on the local machinery of town planning. Outside London, the town-planning authorities are the county borough council, the municipal borough council, the urban district council, and the rural district council, with some kind of a tie-up between them and the county council through a joint regional committee. In this matter the Ministry of Health is a sheer Department of cowardice. It knows that it ought not to have preserved the county district authority as a town-planning authority—not because it has any spite against county districts, but because it knows it is absurd to make the small area local authority a town-planning authority. The job cannot be done on that basis. The Minister knows it is true, every one of his predecessors knew it was true, and the Department knows that it is true. But even if they want to make a stand for administrative righteousness they are afraid of encountering the criticism, perfectly understandable, of minor local authorities.
The units in town planning ought in the first place to be not less than the county council and the county borough

council. The joint committee method of administration does not solve the problem. A joint authority has a lot of joint about it and not enough authority; and there cannot be enough authority, because the rating authorities are not going to let an indirectly elected body make away with the money in the public purse. I suggest that the Minister should consider whether the authority should not be the county council and the county borough council. But, hon. Members will say, there must be comprehensive consideration on a wider basis, and I agree. But what is the State Department for? Every town-planning scheme has to come to the Minister of Health. Does he, when he examines it, do so on the consideration alone of what is happening within the four corners of the district immediately concerned without regard to what is happening next door? I think that really is what he does. I say that the Ministry ought to take at least a regional view and consider each of these town-planning schemes, (a) in relation to what the district requires, and (b) in relation to what the nation requires. The Department is not doing that. The town-planning department of the Ministry of Health is small, limited, and it is not doing it because this great Ministry of Health is still in the days of parish-pump politics, still living in the eighteenth century or the nineteenth century. Modern administration, modern technique and large-scale government have knocked the parish-pump ideas of politics into a cocked hat; but the Minister is still as happy as anything, living in the eighteenth or nineteenth century, and we have to drag him physically into the twentieth century.
I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade when he comes to reply not to allow himself to be dominated by the state of mind of the Minister of Health. Let him rise up and have vision. Let him forget the surroundings in which he unfortunately sits. Let him not address us in the mood of Conservative, small-minded politicians, but speak with the vision and imagination of his famous father. We should like to hear him in that role, and feel a breath of fresh air from the Treasury Bench such as might come to us if the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) were speaking from that box. The Ministry of Health ought to function as


a national planning authority as far as it can, even under existing legislation, and take a national view of what is required.
But I agree that the Ministry of Health alone cannot take the necessary comprehensive view of all the essential factors in this business unless it does it after effective consultation with the other State Departments concerned. The Board of Trade ought to be in this business. Now I want to say something about the Board of Trade. Does it regard itself as anything more than a fact-collecting Department? When they ran railways, they collected facts, statistics, knowledge. It was not their business to have ideas as to how railways should be run. I do not think it is much thought to be their business to have ideas as to how industry should be run—textiles, mining, and so on. That is the business of the capitalists, and you must not interfere with them. If the Board of Trade regards itself merely as a fact-collecting Department, if it refuses the right to go to the coal and cotton capitalists and say, "You are not running your business properly, you are not doing your duty by the country, your industry is not doing the job by the country that it might do," if they still think it is wrong to have any thought or interest not only in how industry is run but how it should be run, if they do not think it is their right to inspire industrial policy and be creative, you cannot expect any economic planning from the Board of Trade, and it is a failure. You might as well have a department of the British Museum collecting the facts.
I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary what he thinks about this. What is his conception of the functions of the Board of Trade? Is it fact collecting or should it be creative—critical? Should it have the idea of formulating industrial and economic policy for the guidance and direction of private industry? I do not want the vague generalities that we had from the Minister of Health. I want to know whether the Board of Trade takes that point of view. It is not only the Ministry of Health and the Board of Trade which are involved in these matters. The Ministry of Transport is concerned. The Ministry of Transport is also the Ministry of Electricity, which is vitally important in all these matters. The Ministry of Agriculture is concerned. I mention the Ministry of Transport because I know that

the Bressey Committee, which was appointed in London, was a matter of vital concern to town planning. I think I am right in saying that the then Minister of Transport, who was until recently Secretary of State for War, did it, and that the Press were very kind to him about it, and that the Ministry of Health never knew anything about it until it was done. What things happen under a Conservative Prime Minister!
The right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour is also obviously concerned in this matter. You get to a very wide variety of State Departments, and the question is whether you can, through one Department, after consultation with the others, get effective administration, or whether you can do it by a joint committee of Ministers or of civil servants. I doubt it. We take the view that a basic case is established for a special body for planning in the location of industry, in relation to existing problems of town planning. I am inclined to think that we have done the right thing here in saying that it should either be a State Department, or some independent board charged with this function of research and advice. It should be a body which would get at the facts, think out their application and advise upon policy, in relation to this wider aspect of the physical planning of the country. It should be attached to a State Department for which a Minister should be responsible.
If the Government think that those things are not possible, they might think of the precedent of the Department of Overseas Trade, which is jointly attached to the Board of Trade and to the Foreign Office. I think there is another of those Departments, which has a tie-up with two other State Departments. You might have a Minister connected with three or four State Departments which are concerned with these matters, which need specialist study and expert consideration, and we ask that there should be some machinery whereby they can be constantly studied, facts can be constantly gathered and policy be constantly reviewed, in order that the best might happen to the country.
I have said that it is not merely a matter of the pushing of industry from one place to another; neither is it a matter of establishing industries in areas where unemployment was high and is likely to


be so again, and where enormous sums of local and State capital are invested in public services such as drains, schools and hospitals. Take the case of the Rhondda Valley. I know South Wales fairly well, having been there often. The same problems arise there, perhaps not to the same dramatic extent, also in other areas like County Durham. The Rhondda Valley was, I suppose, the most thriving industrial part of South Wales in the heyday of so-called 19th century prosperity. Its level has fallen by just so much, in the period of depression. One goes up there in the train or the bus; it is not merely that the place is depressed and that there is extensive unemployment. The poverty of the Rhondda Valley over all these years, added to the carelessness with which industry was planned there in the first place, has made what ought to be a place of beauty a place of dreariness, of considerable ugliness and of depression, so that one feels when one gets there, "This is a miserable show."
Those are not happy circumstances in which to plan new industries. They are not encouraging circumstances. If one looks in the shop windows, everything in some of those shop windows is the cheapest possible of its kind. But it is the dirt, the dreariness, the semi-physical collapse of the district that makes one shiver and ashamed that what was once an economically prosperous area has got to this point of decay. What we have to do with the Rhondda Valley is precisely what we have to do with the East End of London. The East End of London wants sweeping out, and if we could replan it, as my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin), who is now chairman of the town planning committee of the London County Council, would like to do, we could make an attractive suburban, residential district on the edge of the Thames. The Rhondda Valley wants taking to pieces. It wants clearing and replanning "nearer to the heart's desire," and it could be made a spot of beauty. It need not be ugly, and it need not be dirty. New industries ought to come there, with pleasant, nicely built factories, with electric power, and new houses, clean and well planned on the hillsides, ought to be built for the workpeople. The industrial areas need not

be places of ugliness and misery. They could be made places of joy and of creative enterprise.
Broadly, that is how we feel about this matter. We do not deny that there are complications. We do not deny that the Minister of Health, in thinking about this report of the Royal Commission, gets a headache now and again. I am sorry about the headache, but, after all, he is paid £5,000 a year and a headache now and again is of no consequence. He has to earn his money. We must not be afraid of thinking of these things. I know there are difficulties and complications. I ask the Government, through the Parliamentary Secretary, who bears a famous name, to give us a reply containing some hope and some assurance that the Government are going into the question with a hopeful spirit and that they want to make our country a place of brightness, beauty and well-being for the whole of the community.

10.34 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Major Lloyd George): I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Hackney (Mr. H. Morrison) for keeping clear of any controversy which might involve one in a family dispute, and particularly am I grateful to him for his remarks on the tariff question. I do not know whether he knows this, but I am telling him now for his own information. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) has always regarded himself as unorthodox. While listening to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Hackney I wondered why Queen Elizabeth never married. Perhaps she was waiting for the right man to come along. I would like to join with him in thanking the members of the Commission for the work they have done in producing this report.
We have had, as my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health predicted we should have, an interesting and useful discussion. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Hackney will agree with me that before any real, lasting solution can be secured of a problem which has been in existence for so long, we must find out the cause of the problem. We have been trying for a considerable period to do that. This report has added enormously valuable information to that


which was already available. It is important for hon. Members to realise that the report has shown clearly that the location of particular industries, and even the distribution of industry and population have never been completely stable. That movement has not always been under the control of any system, whether Socialist or capitalist.
I might, briefly, go back to the sixteenth century, when Sir Thomas More deplored the decay in arable farming, and the fact that sheep farming had taken its place and that a number of people had lost their work. Coming to a later period, we find flourishing, but small, woollen industries in Wales, the West of England and the Cotswolds. Then, the need for power made it essential for them to move to places where power could be obtained, and the industry found itself eventually in Yorkshire. To-day, that industry in Yorkshire is largely flourishing on imported wool, while in Lancashire another industry is flourishing on imported cotton. Later, in the Free Trade period of the 'forties, we find an entirely different pattern of British industry: a thing which had never happened before, namely, the specialisation of whole areas in particular industries—cotton in Lancashire, wool in Yorkshire, iron working in the Black Country and South Wales. There were people of that time who, no doubt, thought that those things would never change.
Then in the nineteenth century, when the grain lands of the Middle West of Canada and America were opened by the building of transcontinental railways. That had a profound effect on our industries, and particularly it caused another big change in the nature of British agriculture. The perfection of new inventions in steel production contributed largely to the expansion of these industries on the North-East coast and in South Wales. And I may refer to one example where we could not possibly have had any control—except perhaps by trade negotiations. That was the passing of the McKinley tariff, which created a tinplate industry in America, but had a serious effect on South Wales. In the last war we suffered, undoubtedly, from over-expansion in certain industries. Then you had the development of electricity which enabled power to be taken to places far removed from the source. It also made

it possible to take the coal to the ore, as well as the ore to the coal.
Then, we had something which arose directly out of the last war: this was economic nationalism which has developed to such an extent in the last few years. Taking all these things together, there has been a great decline in what are called the heavy industries, and there has been an increase in what are called the light industries in the country. That has caused the Special Areas, and at the same time is largely responsible for the enormous increase of London in the last few years. It is interesting to note that the increase in London is not an increase which has arisen out of the past war. The report, on page 11, says:
The second remarkable feature of population growth has been the even more rapid proportional rate at which the great urban centres of Western civilisation have spread, overflowing their boundaries and forming sprawling agglomerations of humanity, many of dimensions without precedent in the world's history; this concentration of population in great units has been the subject of much scientific investigation in recent years, and Weber, writing in 1899, described is as the most remarkable social phenomenon of the nineteenth century.
And further:
The East has not remained unaffected by similar influences, and Calcutta and Bombay in India; Shanghai, Canton, Nanking and three or four more cities in China,
and so it goes on.
I do not disagree with the right hon. Gentleman, and I am sure nobody disagrees, about the spread of London not being socially, economically or strategically sound. I think that a quarter of the population of this country is to be found within an area of 20 or 30 miles from the centre of London. I do not think that is a good thing. The point I am trying to make by mentioning these things is that it is not easy to foresee the exact changes which will take place in industry. If that is true in peace, it is certainly very much truer in time of war. The hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. K. Griffith) said that it would not be easy to make a firm plan in time of war, and I think everybody must agree with that view. I referred just now to big changes in the last war. Has anybody any idea what the effect of this war will be upon the industries of this country, because, added to the normal disturbance,


there is a factor which did not appear before? That is aerial bombardment. Fortunately, it has not occurred so far, but if it does occur, can anybody say with certainty where the new depressed areas will be? It may well be that somebody may invent between now and a few weeks or months hence, a complete answer to aerial warfare that will alter the whole position. I am not suggesting that that will happen, but funnier things have happened in the world before to-day. It is not possible to foresee during the war the plan you can follow with regard to an industry. In London we have seen already the curious fact that while London has been accumulating population at a rate very much higher than the rest of the country, since the war the process has been reversed. We do not know what may happen as a result of that. Certain industries and executives have gone out of London. We cannot tell whether that process may not occur in other cities as the war progresses. That is a thing that nobody can possibly foresee.
There is the question, again, of changes in industrial practice. Scientists are constantly working and pursuing their researches, and war, as is well known, accelerates that process. There is the situation in Germany with regard to nitrates, which were extracted from the air, because they were compelled to do it in the last war as they were unable to import them. To-day they are exporting them. All these things are bound to have an effect upon any plan which might be made. I think hon. Members will agree that you cannot anticipate every industrial development following a war. To-night we have heard from every quarter of the House speeches, with many of which I agree, urging that we should plan for housing, transport and other things. I am surprised to see in the report that in the area governed by the London Passenger Transport Board 8 per cent. of the annual wages earned by the average family went in fares, which is a remarkable thing. Housing, planning, transport, road development—which was referred to by the hon. Member for East Middlesbrough (Mr. A. Edwards)—and agriculture—which was referred to by the hon. Member for East Stirling (Mr. Woodburn)—are things which must be dealt with by proper planning, but it is

not easy in war-time to concentrate on a plan. It is vital that we should watch developments while war is going on, and I can assure the House that this is being done.
The right hon. Gentleman opposite referred to the Board of Trade and was not very complimentary. He asked whether it was nothing more than a "fact-collecting office." Maybe he will be surprised to hear of the Cotton Industry Act, which was certainly not confined to fact collecting.

Mr. H. Morrison: You went to the industry to tell you what to do.

Major Lloyd George: Anyhow, we did it. Since the war we have done many things to assist the export trade of this country. Indeed, ever since I have been connected with the Department, which, I admit, is only a relatively short time, practically the whole of our time has been spent on legislation or doing something to help industry. At the same time we are also collecting statistics which are vital to development if we are to plan correctly.
In reply to questions which have been asked, I can say that the President of the Board of Trade has been in communication with other Departments concerned, and we are satisfied that the collection of information which has been going on should continue, although it is not in the public interest that that information should be made public. In addition to that, the Minister of Labour has authorised a comprehensive census of labour connected with some of our main industries. The prime cause of that, of course, is that it is essential to connect industry with Service needs and export trade, but it is also invaluable to obtain full information as to the trend of industry and labour throughout the country.
The House will know that the area committees which the Minister of Supply set up originally were for the purpose of collecting information with regard to available productive capacity. On these committees the Board of Trade have representatives so that information can not only be obtained with regard to factories for Service requirements, but also for other purposes. I think that the Government will be in a better position, as a result of all these inquiries, than


any Government in a similar position before in war time to arrange their plans. The President of the Board of Trade is in touch also with the development organisations in the regions and is making arrangements to receive a deputation from the Special Areas Development Organisations Conference. He will carefully consider any proposals they have to make as to the ways in which they can help the Government to prepare for the difficult transitional period from war to peace.
I would remind hon. Members that there is a limit to what Ministers can do in time of war. For the moment, the thing is to transfer your organisation from peace to war, and that is not easy, because vast problems arise every day which have to be met. I tell the House quite frankly that I have not had the time I should have liked to study this report, and it is only because one's time is so taken up with things which are absolutely essential to the winning of the war. It is also difficult to spare any of the staff, which is already heavily overworked, and I would point out that we have not yet got anywhere near to full development of our war effort. We are still working hard to produce the full effort of this country, and if we ask some Ministers to plan for what is going to happen after the war we may find someone else doing the reconstruction for us. That is not a contingency which anyone can contem-

plate with equanimity. We have secured the assistance of many men in business and other walks of life who are giving their services to the Departments and working very hard, but there is a limit to what we can ask of them.
While the Government are fully alive to the importance of the matters dealt with in the report, they feel that at the moment, and I stress particularly "at the moment," they must bend all their energies to the prosecution of the war. I can assure the House that when the situation permits—and I would remind hon. Members that it was not until two years after the beginning of the last war that a committee was set up to look into the matter of reconstruction—the Government intend to give the fullest and closest attention to the important matters which are involved in this discussion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed,

Orders of the Day — ADJOURNMENT.

Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Grimston,]

Adjourned accordingly at Five Minutes before Eleven o'Clock.